CUET won’t affect quotas: UGC chief

All central universities will have to admit students to undergraduate courses based totally on the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) and not Class 12 marks, the University Grants Commission (UGC) stated Monday. This rule will come into effect from the upcoming session (2022-23) year.

UGC chairperson M. Jagadesh Kumar said it will be obligatory for the 45 central universities to adopt CUET for admission to their undergraduate courses. However, for postgraduate admissions, universities will have the flexibility to use CUET scores as of now.

The frequent test, CUET, for admissions to undergraduate and postgraduate courses, will be conducted in the first week of July by the National Test Agency (NTA).

Jagadesh Kumar stated the selection will grant equal possibilities to students from the Northeast and rural India. “In addition to this, it will help mother and father of poor students as they will now not have to pay for performing for a number of entrance exams,” Kumar stated in an on-line interplay with mediapersons.

However, he delivered that some skill-based publications will have sensible components. The course for CUET will be basic principles from the Class 12 CBSE syllabus. The suggestions for the exam will be shared with universities, he said.

CUET, a computerised exam, will be conducted in thirteen languages: English, Hindi, Gujarati, Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

Meanwhile, UGC has exempted global college students from CUET. For post-graduate programmes, though some varsities have joined the initiative, Kumar introduced that he hoped that all universities will eventually make use of the test.