Education Ministry recently announced that the National Testing Agency (NTA) will be limited to conducting only entrance exams for higher education. The exam body will no longer be responsible for holding recruitment exams from next year. The announcement was part of examination reforms based on the recommendations of a high-level panel set up earlier this year following alleged leaks in the NEET exam and a series of cancellations of others due to suspected leaks and other glitches.
The high-level panel included former AIIMS-Delhi director Randeep Guleria; Central University of Hyderabad Vice-Chancellor BJ Rao; K Ramamurthy, professor emeritus in IIT-Madras' Department of Civil Engineering; People Strong co-founder and Karmayogi Bharat board member Pankaj Bansal; IIT-Delhi Dean of Student Affairs Aditya Mittal; and Govind Jaiswal, a joint secretary in the education ministry.
The committee has recommended 10 specific verticals for restructuring the agency. The verticals will be headed at the director level and will be related to technology, products and operations, test security and surveillance.
The panel has suggested that the Centre should collaborate with state governments to conduct the exams. It added that each testing centre should have a 'presiding officer' of the NTA, who will be the 'overall in-charge'. The panel also recommended that testing centres should be sealed in the presence of the district administration and police before the exam, The Indian Express reported..
The committee noted that the NTA should have an "empowered and accountable" governing body with three designated sub-committees to oversee test audit, ethics and transparency; nomination and staff conditions; and stakeholder relationships.
The panel recommended the introduction of a DIGI-EXAM system on the lines of DIGI-YATRA to ensure that only the candidate writing the exam joined the intended programme.
The panel suggested that it was possible to integrate testing centres from Kendriya Vidyalyas, Navodaya Vidyalayas, reputable universities and institutes to establish a nationwide network of about 400-500 testing centres within a time frame of a year or so, which would provide about 2-2.5 lakh testing capacity for conducting CBT in one session nationwide.
(With inputs from PTI)
