New Delhi: Admissions to postgraduate courses will soon be conducted through the Common University Entrance Test (CUET), M. Jagadesh Kumar, chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) told ThePrint in an exclusive interview Thursday.
The UGC is also discussing the possibility of holding CUET twice a year, Kumar said.
The CUET was announced in March this year as a single window for admissions to undergraduate programmes in central universities across the country. Since then, many other non-central universities have also decided to adopt the test.
Looking at the “overwhelming response” from educational institutions, the UGC is now working on extending the CUET to postgraduate programmes offered by central universities, Kumar said.
“We are working on extending CUET to postgraduate programmes as well. We will soon be announcing this,” he said.
Currently, different universities have their own criteria for postgraduate admissions. While most have their own entrance exams, some also accept graduation marks as a criterion for admission. Bringing in CUET will make the process more uniform, enabling students to apply for different universities through a single portal.
Also Read: Various initiatives taken to inform students about CUET: DU
Holding CUET twice a year
Kumar, a former vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), also said that the UGC is exploring the possibility of holding CUET twice a year. “We are internally discussing conducting CUET twice in a year, so that the students who could not appear for it the first time can do so in the second chance.”
“We have received an overwhelming response from students and institutions on CUET, and we hope that in future CUET is the way to be when it comes to college and university admissions,” he added.
The UGC chairman also said that the idea of CUET is to rid students of any pressure to score well in their Class 12 exams, so that they can simply focus on learning. This is another reason the commission wants to give students two chances to clear the exam, he added.
Asked whether CUET will encourage coaching culture, Kumar said, “I have been asked many times whether CUET will encourage coaching centers… It will not lead to coaching culture because in most cases, coaching culture arises where there is huge competition, like in the case of JEE, where nearly 12 lakh students compete for 16,000 seats — that is about 1:75 competition.”
“But, if you look at all the 45 central universities, we have 1.2 lakh seats and some of the best state and deemed-to-be universities are joining, raising the seats to 3 lakh. The competition in that case will come to 1:5,” he added.
More than one lakh students have already registered for CUET between 2 April and 13 April 2022.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Also Read: After central universities, UGC wants state-run & deemed-to-be institutions to come under CUET