National Testing Agency (NTA) is an autonomous agency under the
Department of Higher Education of the
Ministry of Education of
India. It has been approved by the
Union Council of Ministers and established in November 2017 to conduct entrance examinations admissions and recruitment. NTA is responsible for conducting numerous national level exams for admission and fellowship in higher educational institutions related to engineering, medical, management and pharmacy.[1][2]
History
The roots of the agency can be traced to the Programme of Action 1992, related to National Policy of Education 1986, which mentioned conducting national level common entrance tests to professional and non-professional programmes of study.[3] Its actual start was in 2010 with a report submitted to the
Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) 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 testing of the magnitude that was being envisaged.[4]
In 2013 the MHRD constituted a seven member task force to "prepare a blue print for creating a special purpose vehicle to take the concept of National Testing Agency (NTA) forward".[5] This was following a decision made in April 2013 to set up the agency.[5]
In 2017 an announcement about 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.[6]
The agency is administered by a governing body which includes a chairperson, a secretary and eight or more officials representing different national level institutes.[8]
Budget
Union cabinet has granted an initial amount of ₹25 crore (equivalent to ₹35 crore or US$4.4 million in 2023) to NTA[9] to start its operations in the first year.[10] The agency is financed by the
Department of Higher Education of the
Ministry of Education.[11]
Exams
Following are the exams conducted by NTA every year.[12]
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.[13][14] Seven people have been arrested including Bhargav Deka, owner of a city-based coaching institute Global Edu Light,
Tata Consultancy Services employees,[15] the candidate (Neel Nakshatra Das), Neel's father - Dr. Jyotirmoy Das, and an invigilator.[16][17][18]
NEET (UG) discrepancies
In
NEET (UG) 2020 exam, 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.[19][20] Vidhi's response sheet proved that she had actually scored 590 marks.[21]
In
NEET (UG) 2020 exam, NTA had allegedly declared Mridul Rawat as failed.[22][23] 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.[24] NTA refuted the claims of Mridul Rawat.[25] Director-General Vineet Joshi of NTA said “An aspirant has claimed that he has 650 marks whereas he has obtained 329 marks in NEET 2020 results. The emails purported to have been written by NTA are also fake. This news has been broadcast by some local news channels in some cities. This news 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 NTA with the cybersecurity cell under the IT Act at Noida, UP.”[26]
JEE (Main) 2022 technical issues
National Testing Agency was widely criticized for the improper conduction of JEE (Main) 2022 examination. Many students faced technical issues during the examination, which resulted in lower score.[27] Glitches in answer key and response sheet of the exam were also a serious problem for the students. The agency has not considered the reconduction of the examination.[28]
Apparent Misconduct and irregularity in JEE (Main) 2024
NTA has been criticized for irregularities in the difficulty level of question papers of JEE (Main), which leads to normalization of marks and ultimately, lower scores of candidates. [29]
JEE Mains 2024 Session 1 (January)
Discrepancy of appearing students in the initial four shifts of January 27 and January 29 has been reported by many students. 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 record of number of students appearing in respective shifts. [30][31][32][33][34]However NTA released the data in which no uneven distribution of candidates was found.[35]
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 other nine cases were reported in various parts of the country. The offenders were detected through artificial intelligence enabled monitoring and biometric verification.[36][37]