NEET Exam Row: Education experts call for academic monitoring of national exams to ensure integrity
Established in 2017, NTA administers crucial entrance and scholarship exams such as NEET, JEE and CMAT, reaching over 10 million students every year. Despite its autonomous status, the NTA’s operations and leadership have come under scrutiny, prompting the government to conduct a high-level review.
V Ramgopal Rao, Vice-Chancellor, BITS Pilani, in a discussion with CNBC-TV18, highlighted the importance of educational institutions taking the lead in administering the exams. Citing successful models such as the JEE Advanced exam conducted by the IITs, Rao argued that education and exams should be managed by educators with a vested interest in maintaining the integrity and reputation of these exams.
He highlighted the exemplary record of IITs, where faculty participation ensures rigorous standards and accountability. “If an IIT exam is leaked, the whole country talks bad about IITs, which no IIT would want to do,” he noted, emphasizing the ownership and commitment that comes with academic oversight .
Rao proposed that a constitutional body like the UPSC, known for its autonomy and expertise, could be a better model for holding national exams if government involvement is required. Alternatively, he suggested that institutions like AIIMS could collectively manage exams like NEET, similar to how IITs manage JEE Advanced.
Dr Vidya Yeravdekar, vice-chancellor of Symbiosis International University, echoed Rao’s sentiments, emphasizing the need for university involvement in the review process. “Whether it is NTA or any other organization, it is not only the commitment of people but also the knowledge,” she said. She advocated for an autonomous body involving academicians dedicated to maintaining the seriousness and integrity of the examination process.
Drawing on the experience of Symbiosis International University, Yeravdekar described how their MBA entrance exam, the Symbiosis National Aptitude Test (SNAP), is conducted. The university outsources the exam to TCS, which runs it online, ensuring robust security measures and a dedicated team to oversee the process. She also stressed the importance of giving students multiple opportunities to take the exam, thereby improving accessibility and fairness.
The recent dismissal of NTA chief Subodh Kumar Singh and the education minister’s calling the leaks an “institutional failure” highlight the urgent need for reforms.
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi criticized the government’s response as inadequate and called for the resignation of the education minister and an impartial investigation into the NTA’s operations.
Edited excerpts:
Q: Dr. Rao, if I ask you about the NTA as an organization, it was established in 2017. It was an autonomous private organization. Yes, it was headed by an IAS official, and now it has been replaced by another IAS official, but it is registered under the Societies Registration Act of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Should an agency which has to conduct such large scale tests involving examinations with 24 lakh examinees and 11 lakh examinees ask a private body to conduct such tests, or should it be brought entirely under the control of the government ?
Rao: No, I think government control will be even worse. The best models are probably, for example, the IITs which conduct the JEE advanced exam. The JEE Advanced exam is for around 2 lakh students, a completely online exam. Even the GATE exam conducted by the IITs, which again involves 12 lakh-13 lakh students at any given time, is again some kind of online exam. I think education and testing should be left to educators. I don’t believe any bureaucrat sitting in a department doesn’t take ownership of this review or isn’t engaged with the whole thing because bureaucrats change every two years. Many of them have no stake, whereas when IITs conduct the exam, it’s like an engagement. It’s property. Their entire name is at stake. If an IIT exam is leaked, the country will speak ill of the IITs, which no IIT would want to do. If we look at the track record of JEE Advanced Examination, there has never been any question paper leak or any problem. This is due to the faculty involvement in this exam from day one. At every stage, faculty members are involved in the IIT exams. I think that’s the kind of commitment the IITs have. However, if you want to do it in the government system, I think the UPSC is probably a better model because the UPSC has this autonomy, it has a board of directors, it has the UPSC members and everything that, and these are people who have experienced a similar type of thing. They know what the issues are and autonomy is also associated with UPSC. They bring in all kinds of experts and all that. So I think instead of an NTA model, I would believe that a constitutional body like the UPSC would conduct the review if the government needs to do so. Otherwise, leave it to AIIMS. All our AIIMS can come together and conduct this exam like IITs do for JEE Advanced or GATE exam. If you want to learn about the world, SAT is a good model. The SAT exam is also used by nearly two million students. There is a question bank for the SAT and you can take the exam as many times as you want. And I think that’s a type of model that we can move towards. So there are several models, but I think the NTA is not the right body to conduct these exams with some IAS officers conducting them.
Q: Dr Vidya, do you also think that the NTA as an organization has been unable to do its job? It was not framed correctly. We need a new body. Do you think there should be one body staffed with a large number of people conducting the exams, or should it be a very small team that works confidentially and conducts the exams entirely online, such as are you doing it in Symbiosis or like we are doing it in IITs across the country?
Yeravdekar: Whether it is NTA or any other organization conducting this review, it is not only the commitment of people but also the knowledge. So, if you are involving academicians in conducting such an exam, AIIMS would be the right place to review the NEET exam. So there could be an autonomous body, but it would involve academicians because academicians take exams seriously. Even in Symbiosis, people think together. They don’t care about families or anything personal when creating the question bank. This is a very serious matter. An entire ministry is responsible.
Q: Dr. Vidya, give us an idea of your experience in conducting competitive testing at Symbiosis. Is there anything we can replicate on a national level?
Yeravdekar: For our MBA entrance exam, we have Symbiosis National Aptitude Test (SNAP) and more than 1,00,000 students take this exam. We have outsourced it to TCS, and TCS manages it online at its centers. However, there are many safety measures and we have a whole department within the university that administers and manages the test. So it’s at the postgraduate level. At the undergraduate level, we have another exam called SET. We have SLAT, which is again run by TCS Online for Law. It is therefore a question of examining the security measures and having a team to monitor them properly; this is how exams become foolproof. We also give students the choice to appear for the exam at least three times so that if someone misses the exam once, they have the option to appear on another day and possibly another day. This is how we conduct our reviews.
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