Even as the NEET-UGC controversy rages on, the Union Education Ministry on Wednesday, June 19, cancelled the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET), which is held to fill assistant professor posts in universities and colleges and to determine eligibility for junior research fellowships.
The Education ministry said on Wednesday that UGC-NET scheduled for June had been scrapped after inputs indicated that “the integrity of the examination may have been compromised”.
The matter was also handed over the Central Bureau of Investigation for a probe.
Students at Lucknow University, however, claimed that Paper-1 of the test had been leaked and copies were being sold for Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 through WhatsApp and Telegram groups since the evening of June 16.
They alleged that they had flagged the matter online, but UGC took no action.
Over nine lakh candidates on Tuesday appeared for the UGC-NET exam in OMR (pen and paper) format on Tuesday. But they were not provided a carbon copy with the OMR, the students claimed.
“If we had the carbon copy, we could have challenged the NTA,” they said.
Most examinees look forward to the NET, hoping for prestigious assistant professorships or teaching jobs in institutes of higher education.
Most of them are under pressure psychologically as they are in an age group when their families expect them to earn and support them financially.
Preparations for the exam are tough too, and this year, many students have had to brave extreme heat to reach their examination centres in the afternoon.
So the resultant uncertainty when papers are leaked or examinations are cancelled takes a toll on them.
“This is grave injustice,” said Imtiyaz Ahmed, a research scholar at the Central University of Kashmir. “My friends and I had to wait for hours to get a single bus to Ganderbal to the examination centre. The place is 35 km away from our homes. This unbearable heat made matters worse. I returned home at around 9 pm after leaving the exam hall at 6 pm owing to the lack of transportation because of the Eid holiday.”
A budding journalist from Gujarat, who aspires to pursue PhD too, is disheartened by the news. “I had to take leave from my workplace to appear for the examination. It is not easy to juggle work and studies for a competitive examination. This time, we had extra stuff on our plate as most of us were covering the General Elections. Since the exam has been cancelled, it will be another round of struggle for people like us,” he said.
“I have had to leave my hometown in West Bengal for a job to support my family. Being away from home for around five years and then working in a corporate organisation where one has to put in late hours is not easy. I had worked hard for this examination and was expecting better results. But what happened has hit my morale,” says Deepan Chattopadhyay.
Sajida, a fourth-semester Mass Communication student at Kashmir University, is “disappointed,” by the cancellation of the exam. “My paper went fairly well. I was expecting a good score. I wonder how papers of such prestigious exams can get leaked.”
The NTA, which conducts UGC-NET, is already embroiled in a controversy over irregularities in the NEET medical entrance exams.
Additionally, reports of alleged exam irregularities came months after the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha passed an ‘anti-cheating’ bill to check fraudulent practices — such as leaking of exam papers — in government recruitment exams.
The Centre pushed through the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024, to curb leaks and organised malpractices in recruitment examinations such as UPSC, SSC, etc. and entrance tests such as NEET, JEE and CUET.
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