Pros and Cons of Common Entrance Test for Central Varsities

Ground Report | New Delhi: Pros of Common Entrance Test; The Union government has decided to conduct a common entrance test for admission to all central universities from the coming academic session i.e. 2022-23, according to a letter from the University Grants Commission (UGC). The common university entrance test (CUCET) will be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admission to all undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

After a meeting held on November 22, the UGC on November 26 asked vice-chancellors of Central universities to take “appropriate measures” to conduct the Common University Entrance Test (CUCET) that is to be organised by the National Testing Agency (NTA).

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This is the 11th year of the Central University – Common Entrance Test. It has been functional since 2010 but only 14 central universities opted for it. Now, CUCET is being expanded to several other universities. The vice-chancellor of University of Delhi (DU) too had earlier said that DU might consider CUCET as one of its entry gateways.

Pros of Common Entrance Test

• Any experienced person will vouch for the fact that a high score in board exams does not necessarily translate into knowledge. For the same reason, top Universities across the world prefer an entrance exam as the sole criteria or a mix of merit and entrance for admissions to undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
• The CUCET Exam, if implemented properly, has the potential to remove a vast majority of individual entrances by different Universities and may also be accepted by state Universities.
• It's time student’s aspiration is put to priority and ensure a fair mechanism is given to them for college admissions.
• The existing board-exam based screening is leading to unrealistic cut-offs which CUCET can change
• Students aspire to take admission in universities like Delhi University, and get rejected because they have not scored enough in their board exams. CUCET will be like a second chance to reach a decent college of their choice and uplift their confidence.

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Cons of CUCET

• It is believed that the economically and socially deprived students will be left behind and will not get more chances to get into top-tier universities. This is because they won't be able to go to coaching centers to clear the exams in contrast to the upper or middle class students. Also, in a country like India, people will not invest much in a girl child. The best-coached students will have more chance than the deprived ones.
•  CUCET cannot function in the current scenario of underfunding and lack of resources and comprehensive evaluations. In a scenario where entrance exams take months to complete the admission process. This is somehow true. For instance, RRB NTPC Group D exam notification was released in 2019 and there are no exam dates even until now.
• Professors of some of the top universities believe that the proposal to have a common entrance test is an affront to the autonomy of universities. 

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