In a recent notification, the University Grants Commission (UGC) announced a Central University Common Entrance Test (CUCET) which is now called the Central University Entrance Test (CUET), which is now mandatory for undergraduate admission to any of the 45 central universities across the country. The exam is expected to be conducted in the first week of July. It is a computer-based test that will be held in two shifts and can be taken in 13 languages – Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telegu, Kannada, Malayalam, Urdu, Assamese, Bengali, Punjabi, Odia, and English. However, it’s not clear whether CUET will be conducted on a single day or multiple days.
The notification stated that the CUET scores will now be used for admissions to Central Universities, instead of the Board exam results. Also, as per the latest notification, the registrations for CUET will now begin from 1st week of April 2022 and the detailed guidelines are expected soon on the official NTA website.
Why is a common entrance test required?
Every year, several universities make attempts to replace multiple entrance tests with a single one in order to reduce the burden on high education aspirants and even CUET is one of them. The exam was launched as Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET) in the year 2010 under the UPA-II government but had not gained much importance since only 14 central universities had adopted it until last year. Hence, CUET is just a revamped version of the same and is now compulsory for all the 45 central universities to accept it. This has come up after the latest announcement of the National Education Policy (NEP), which believes in the need for an entrance test for university admissions.
From now on, a student’s board marks will have no role in determining admission to a college or a programme. It will be based completely on the CUET score. Only the colleges affiliated with Delhi University or any other central university for that matter can use the Board marks as the minimum eligibility criteria for admission.
For special courses such as music, painting, sculpture, and theatre, universities will be allowed to conduct practical exams or interviews along with CUET. For professional programmes such as engineering and MBBS, central universities will accept admissions through the entrance exams JEE (Main) and NEET respectively.
