NEW DELHI, March 22: The University Grants Commission (UGC) has announced that
admission to undergraduate courses in all Central universities will be based
on a Common University Entrance Test (CUET) and not the Class 12 Board examination
marks from 2022-23 academic year.
However, the UGC said that these Class 12 marks obtained in various Board examinations
could still be used as an ‘eligibility criterion’ by the universities, UGC chairman
M Jagadesh Kumar said on Monday. As the marking and syllabus of the Boards differ
widely, the common test seeks to rectify the inadequacies in determining merit
for admissions.
The National Testing Agency (NTA) will hold the CUET in the first week of July.
The multiple-choice test will be computerised and will be easy to take with
minimum of computer literacy. Applications can be submitted from the first week
of April. The NTA will publish a merit list. All the 45 Central universities
will admit students on the basis of their scores in the test.
Syllabus for test
According to Kumar, the syllabus of the test will mirror the Class 12 model
syllabus of the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
The CUET is a three-and-a-half hour test consisting of multiple- choice questions
with negative marking for incorrect answers.
The test will be in three parts. The first will test a candidate on language
skills in a language of their choice from among these 13 languages: Hindi, English,
Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telegu, Kannada, Malayalam, Urdu, Assamese, Bengali,
Punjabi or Odia. An additional test in some other languages is optional. The
languages are: French, Spanish, German, Nepali, Persian, Italian, Arabic, Sindhi,
Kashmiri, Konkani, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri, Santhali, Tibetan, Japanese,
Russian and Chinese.
The second part is subject-specific. An examinee can choose one to six subjects
from among 27 given subjects.
The third part will be on current affairs, general knowledge, reasoning, numerical
ability etc.
Reservation unaffected
The CUET will not affect the existing admission and reservation policy that
is being followed, the UGC chairman said.
The universities can adopt additional criteria for courses in music, fine arts,
theatre etc.
Foreign students will be exempted from the test.
The State and private universities and deemed universities may use the CUET
scores, but not compulsory.
There are about 50 Central universities in the country. Delhi University (DU),
Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Jawaharlal Nehru
University (JU) and Banaras Hindu University (BHU) are some of them.
The UGC claims that the CUET will also substantially lessen the financial burden
and other dificulties of the parents in cases where children currently take
several tests and at distant places.
The UGC issued the following notice on March 21:-
"The Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admission in Undergraduate
programs from the academic session 2022-2023 in all UGC funded Central Universities
will be conducted in 13 languages namely Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu,
Kannada, Malayalam, Urdu, Assamese, Bengali, Punjabi, Odia and English by the
National Testing Agency G'ffA). The CUET may also be adopted by the State/ Private
/ Deemed to be Universities.
"Detailed structure of CUET UG is available on NTA website https://nta.ac.in/
"Application for CUET UG will be available in the 1st week of April 2022.
"A large number of Central Universities have also confirmed their participation
in the CUET - 2022 (PG), the details of which will be available on the NTA website
https://nta.ac.inl shortly.
"All the stakeholders are requested to visit NTA website https://nta.ac.in/
for further information."
GO TO: UGC
Notice
