The controversy over NEET is refusing to die down. Amid widespread protests and a slew of petitions before the judiciary, the Centre has said that a high-level committee will recommend improvements in the NTA, the examination process, and security protocols.

Aspirants have continued to demand justice, and the possibility of a wider retest. Doubts about institutional integrity have, meanwhile, been compounded by the cancellation of the UGC-NET.

Editorials in prominent dailies minced no words, pointing to the need for a complete rethink and underlining the political class’s shortage of ideas. 

The Indian Express asked to “examine the exam”, noting that two examinations conducted by the NTA – NEET and UGC-NET – have invited controversy. 

“The NET is the first centrally-conducted examination to be scrapped after the Centre introduced a new anti-paper leak law in February. The investigation could provide crucial lessons in applying the new law to stem a pressing problem that threatens to tar the credibility of the educational and public recruitment systems. In a country with myriad diversities and challenges, even one weak link in the examination chain — from setting papers to their distribution to the evaluation of answer seats — can compromise fair play. Many states have anti-cheating laws but they have found it difficult to bust networks that, by all accounts, involve the exam mafia and the coaching-classes industry.” 

“An investigation by this paper in February found more than 40 instances of paper leaks in 15 states over the last five years, which derailed the schedules of nearly 1.5 crore candidates who had applied for positions in various fields — education, engineering and public works, healthcare and police. In a country of predominantly young people with rising aspirations, such disruptions cause resentments and stoke insecurities. It’s not surprising that in recent years several states have witnessed public outrage over the disruption of examination schedules.” 

It added that “the political class’s shortage of ideas on the issue is disturbing in a country that intends to reap its demographic dividend in the next two decades”.

The Hindustan Times said the government must step in and assure aggrieved students of corrective steps, including fair and foolproof exams.

“Unfortunately, that trust has now been sullied. Despite the government’s assurances, questions linger about the processes followed by NTA and the safeguards built into the system. This calls for independent and transparent investigations and a public acknowledgement of the missteps. NTA and other stakeholders can then attempt to fix the gaps.” 

“Beyond this, there is a need to make the testing framework less vulnerable, indeed foolproof, to leaks and other malpractice. To start with, effort should be made to ensure that the paper-and-pen format involving physical question papers and OMR sheets yields to computer-based tests, as is the global practice. This takes care of question paper leaks from printing presses and test centres. Coupled with measures such as real-time tracking and limited connection time with the internet – to address the vulnerabilities of CBTs – this can also minimise chances of manipulation or subversion of the testing process. At the same time, shifting to multiple-choice questions that test a deep conceptual understanding of a subject can also negate subjectivity that is typical of manual assessment, at least at the preliminary level of screening. Then there are secondary ways in which the eroded trust can be repaired – from greater sharing of anonymised performance data, detailed analyses of scoring, and using technology and psychometric analysis to reduce cheating.”

It added that the government and the NTA must also “engage with this year’s aspirants, ensure that the disruption to their careers is minimal, and be as open in fixing lacunae as possible”. 

The Business Standard said all India exam protocols need a rethink. It said the NTA’s shortcomings are one aspect of the problem. “But the current controversies also point to larger questions about the structure of the education system”.

“Problems have been showing up in piecemeal fashion since the NTA started functioning in 2018, such as substitute candidates appearing to write an exam (and topping it), incorrect scores, papers distributed in the wrong medium, and so on. Many of these problems converged on the current controversy over the NEET,” it said. Referring to NEET as well as the cancellation of the UGC-NET, it said the allegations of paper leaks have emerged just months after Parliament passed a law to curb this India-wide menace.”

The Times of India, meanwhile, said that there was a need to ask tough questions on the process of conducting centralised exams, which it pointed out were “loosely controlled”. 

“The scale of NTA’s failures bears repetition. From CUET to JEE, NEET and UGC-NET, there have been far too many glitches, including those that have raised big questions on the integrity and competence of the testing agency. Such has been NTA’s mismanagement that arguments against a single-exam authority have again resurfaced. So scattered is the agency’s implementation and nodes of accountability that weeks after the NEET fiasco, the only action has been the cancellation of the exam for grace mark students – and empty platitudes. Absent was any sense of accountability.”

“Implementers are largely private sector, a burgeoning ecosystem of ‘service providers’ – exam centres, IT companies and medium-scale computer operations, which have sprung up solely to be the outsourced-infra required to conduct these mammoth tests. NTA cannot vouch for cybersecurity at thousands of centres where online tests are held. Nor for invigilators and personnel staffing physical centres. It leaves the system vulnerable to attacks, physical and remote, notwithstanding CERT-In security certificates, which are required per bid rules. Paper leaks, impersonation or proxies, and hacks are inevitable in such an unwieldy, loosely controlled organisation. CCTVs and audits aren’t enough.”

It said the government “committee should not only be on a tight deadline, but it must also have the freedom to ask uncomfortable questions including on the desirability of a centralised testing system. If heads roll in NTA, it will address the accountability issue. But a new NTA team will not be effective unless old structural flaws of the national testing system are fixed.”

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