The National testing Agency (NTA) on Monday postponed the January 15 National Eligibility Test or NET, which determines the eligibility to become assistant professors and junior research fellows in universities. The exam has been postponed due to Makar Sankranti and Pongal. The NTA said that it will announce a fresh date later. This comes days after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin wrote a letter to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to reschedule the NET exam due to Pongal and other harvest festivals in various states.
"The National Testing Agency has received representation to postpone the UGC - NET December 2024 examination on account of Pongal, Makar Sankranti and other festival on 15th January 2025. In the interest of aspirants, the National Testing Agency (NTA) has decided to Postpone the UGC-NET December 2024 Exam scheduled on 15th January 2025 only," the agency said in an statement.
The exam on January 16 will be held as per schedule, NTA further said.
This is the first time that NTA scheduled the national-level test during this period of the year.
The exam for admission to PhD programmes, awarding Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and appointment as assistant professors is being conducted from January 3 to January 16 for 85 subjects in the Computer Based Test (CBT) mode.
On January 15, the exam was scheduled for 17 subjects, including mass communication and journalism, Sanskrit, Nepali, law, Japanese, women studies, Malayalam, Urdu, Konkani, criminology, folk literature, electronic science, environmental science and Indian knowledge system.
The UGC-NET was also postponed last year too after the education ministry received inputs that the integrity of the exam might be compromised.
