National Testing Agency Director Vineet JoshiThe Common University Entrance Test for undergraduate courses (CUET-UG), starting July 15, has been designed to ensure that students taking the test earlier than their peers in the staggered format will not be placed at any disadvantage as the scores will be based on a normalisation process, National Testing Agency (NTA) director Vineet Joshi told The Indian Express.
The normalisation process, which is used by the agency in the case of engineering entrance tests, ensures equity as it takes into consideration various factors that could lead to one set of students performing better for reasons other than academic competence.
For instance, the difficulty level of a question paper on the same subject may vary from one session to another. But the normalisation process offers a level playing field, Joshi said.
“Consider a situation where 20,000 students are taking the Economics paper on July 15, while another group is taking the paper on August 8. One would assume that those taking it earlier are at a disadvantage as the August 8 group will be better prepared. But while awarding the percentile scores, the relative performance of candidates from the same group will be considered,” Joshi said.
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The CUET-UG, which is the country’s largest common entrance for college admissions, is scheduled to take place on July 15, 16, 19 and 20 in the first phase — and on August 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 20 in the second phase.
Over 14.9 lakh aspirants have registered for the test. The registered candidates have picked 54,555 “unique combinations” of subjects. Their CUET-UG scores will be used by colleges under 90 universities, including 44 Central, 19 private, 11 deemed and 12 state institutions.
According to Joshi, the test has been structured in a way that it does not “favour or disfavour anyone”. On the question of several papers scheduled on a single day, which has left students who have chosen multiple subjects with very less transition time, Joshi said the normalisation process will take care of that as well.
“Moreover, when the exam was announced, we had made all the announcements. Choosing subjects in a particular slot is a choice that the students have exercised; we have not made any changes there,” he said.
Joshi said the NTA has ensured that candidates appearing in multiple papers on the same day get the same centre.
“There are no cases of students, who are appearing in more than one subject, having to travel to different cities or centres in the same city on the same day anymore. There could be cases of a student being allotted different centres in the same city when the papers are spread over multiple days. As many as 98 per cent have got the city of their first choice. And we are trying to accommodate the rest. We are trying to address genuine concerns and we will continue doing that till tomorrow,” he said.
On complaints of delay in the issue of admit cards, Joshi said: “Everyone was aware of the starting date of the exam. The dates were announced in June itself. It was a given that some students would have to appear in the initial few dates while some would be assigned slots in phase II.”
According to Joshi, the NTA has also received requests from students to prepare date sheets in a way that they get over with the entrance test as quickly as possible. “We have tried to create an impartial and fair system based on all inputs, and based on our experience and learnings we will bring improvements. For now, all genuine problems are being addressed,” he said.
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