The National Testing Agency (NTA) is an autonomous body of Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education of India. It was established in November 2017 to conduct entrance examination admissions and recruitment. The NTA is responsible for conducting numerous national-level exams for admission and fellowship in higher educational institutions related to engineering, medicine, management and pharmacy.[2][3]
History
The roots of the agency can be traced to the Programme of Action 1992, related to the National Policy of Education 1986, which mentioned conducting national-level common entrance tests to professional and non-professional programmes of study.[4] Its actual start was in 2010 with a report submitted to the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) (now the Ministry of Education) by a committee consisting of some of the directors of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), which recommended that the national testing agency be "created by an Act of Parliament". The report mentioned that a statutory agency can ensure independence and transparency in the testing of the magnitude that was being envisaged.[5]
In 2013, the MHRD constituted a seven-member task force to "prepare blueprint for creating a special purpose vehicle to take the concept of the National Testing Agency (NTA) forward".[6] This was following a decision made in April 2013 to set up the agency.[6]
In 2017, an announcement about the NTA was made by the Finance Minister in the budget speech of 2017, and this was followed by Cabinet approval. The government appointed Vineet Joshi as the first Director-General of the agency.[7]
The agency is administered by a governing body which includes a chairperson, a secretary and eight or more officials representing different national level institutes.[9]
Budget
The Union Cabinet has granted an initial amount of ₹25 crore (equivalent to ₹35 crore or US$4.2 million in 2023) to the NTA[10] to start its operations in the first year.[11] The agency is financed by the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education.[12]
Exams
Following are the exams conducted by the NTA every year.[13]
In 2020, Neel Nakshatra Das, a candidate for JEE Mains used a substitute to give the exam. He subsequently scored 99.8 percentile in the exam and topped in his state, Assam.[14][15] Seven people have been arrested, including Bhargav Deka, the owner of a city-based coaching institute, Global Edu Light and Tata Consultancy Services employees [16] The candidate (Neel Nakshatra Das), Neel's father, Jyotirmoy Das, and an invigilator.[17][18][19]
NEET (UG) 2020 discrepancies
In the NEET (UG) 2020 exam, the NTA incorrectly declared that Vidhi Suryavanshi of Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara district had only scored 6 marks which were later found out to be false after Vidhi committed suicide.[20][21] Vidhi's response sheet proved that she had actually scored 590 marks.[22]
In the NEET (UG) 2020 exam, the NTA had allegedly declared Mridul Rawat as failed.[23][24] Rawat claimed that he challenged the NTA and after rechecking his OMR sheet and Answer Key, it was found that he was an All India Topper (ST Category). Rawat also claimed that even after the rechecking, in the revised scorecard, his score was 650 but only three hundred twenty-nine were written in words.[25] The NTA refuted the claims of Mridul Rawat.[26] Director-General Vineet Joshi of the NTA said, “An aspirant has claimed that he has 650 marks whereas he has obtained 329 marks in the NEET 2020 results. The emails purported to have been written by the NTA are also fake. This news has been broadcast by some local news channels in some cities. It was totally fake, fabricated, and one-sided and news channels should have confirmed from NTA prior to broadcasting it. In the instant case, a complaint was being filed by the NTA with the cybersecurity cell under the IT Act at Noida, UP.”[27]
JEE (Main) 2022 technical glitches
The National Testing Agency was widely criticised for the improper conduction of the JEE (Main) 2022 examination. Many students faced technical glitches during the examination, which resulted in lower scores.[28] Glitches in answer key and response sheet of the exam were also a serious problem for the students. The agency has not considered the re-conduction of the examination.[29]
Apparent Misconduct and Irregularity in JEE (Main) 2024
The NTA has been criticised for irregularities in the difficulty level of question papers of JEE(Main), which leads to the normalisation of marks and ultimately, lower scores of candidates.[30]
JEE Mains 2024 Session 1 (January)
The discrepancy of appearing students in the initial four shifts of January 27(Shift 1 and 2) and January 29(Shift 1 and 2) has been reported by many students. The NTA allegedly distributed candidates erratically over the 10 shifts. Claims state that an absurdly larger appearance of students on the first two days was observed which caused major disparities in percentiles of the candidates. A surge in cutoff was also observed which further caused despair among some students. Multiple requests under the RTI Act have been filed, seeking evidence-backed statistical records of the number of students appearing in the respective shifts.[31][32][33][34][35] However, the NTA released the data in which no uneven distribution of candidates was found.[36]
JEE Mains 2024 Session 2 (April)
The agency stated that one case of impersonation and nine cases of cheating or other unfair means were reported on 4 April. It was later reported that the impersonation case was reported in Noida, while the other nine cases were reported in various parts of the country. The offenders were detected through artificial intelligence enabled monitoring and biometric verification.[37][38] In its concluding press release, the agency highlighted that 39 candidates have been disqualified for a period of three years due to their involvement in unfair practices during the examination.[39]
In NEET (UG) 2024 exam, for which a little more than 24 lakh registered, the paper was leaked on 5 May 2024 in Patna, Bihar. According to the police, the paper leak mafia allegedly took ₹30 lakhs to ₹50 lakhs from many candidates and accommodated them in the lodges of Patna where they were provided question papers, claiming to be that of NEET-UG, for memorizing.[40]
On 4 June 2024, the NEET-UG result was declared on the same day as the result of the 2024 Indian general election, 10 days before the expected result date, declared by the NTA. Publicly published results of various all-India top scorers who scored 718 and 719 marks went viral on the Internet. Many students and teachers pointed out that due to the structure of the marking scheme, it was impossible to obtain those marks in the NEET-UG examinations.
The number of candidates scoring full marks also went up from 3 in 2021, 2 in 2023 to 67 in 2024 From a merit list uploaded into the public database by the NTA, it was also revealed that of those 67, scoring 720 out of 720 marks, 44 toppers are due to one physics question and six took the exam from the same or nearby centres in the Jhajjar city of Haryana.[41]
When students raised their concerns, the NTA released a statement to explain the discrepancies: "(The) NTA received few representations and Court Cases from the candidates of (the) NEET (UG) 2024, raising concerns of loss of time during the conduct of the examination on 5 May 2024. Such cases/representations were considered by (the) NTA and the normalisation formula, which has been devised and adopted by the Hon'ble Apex Court, vide its judgment dated 13th June 2018, was implemented to address the loss of time faced by the candidates of (the) NEET (UG) 2024."[42]
The NTA noted that around 1,563 candidates were given grace marks, and the revised marks of such candidates vary from 20 to 720 marks. Students raised concerns over not being notified of the grace mark formulation in the examination brochures and the criteria for allotment of these grace marks.[43] However, after the intervention of the Supreme Court, the NTA decided to withdraw the grace marks and hold the examination again for those 1,563 candidates on 23 June 2024. Out of these, 813 students took the retest.[44]
The allegations raised are indeed serious and warrant thorough examination. However, it’s crucial to approach them with a balanced perspective. While there have been reports of isolated incidents, such as exam paper leaks and irregularities at some test centers, these do not inherently compromise the integrity of the overall examination process.[45]
The National Testing Agency (NTA), entrusted with organizing NEET (UG) 2024, has taken significant steps to address such challenges. These measures include deploying advanced security technologies, increasing CCTV coverage, and enforcing stricter protocols for invigilators to ensure a fair and transparent examination environment.
As per the recommendations of the High Powered Committee, NTA decided to reconduct the NEET (UG) 2024 on 23 June 2024 for 1563 candidates who had experienced time loss during the originally scheduled examination on 5 May 2024 and were awarded compensatory marks.[46]
On July 23, 2024 the Supreme Court of India led by Justice DY Chandrachud and consisting of Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra acknowledged that at least 155 students directly benefitted from the paper leak ruled that there were no indications of an overall systemic failure barring few circumstances and denied that there was any large-scale leak of the NEET(UG) 2024 paper hence ruled that there would be no re-examination as there were no credible reports of a large-scale phenomenon.[47][48]
