In a sweat over CUET

NOIDA: A student of Amity International School in Noida, who wants to pursue political science, has to give four exams on July 19 to appear for CUET. Her friends from school, who also want to take up the same discipline for undergraduation, have the same papers spaced out till August.
“How unfair, and ridiculous is this,” the Amity student’s mother said on Wednesday, adding that she has written to the National Testing Agency (NTA) to change the exam dates.
The student is among hundreds who are unhappy with the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) exam schedule declared by the NTA just days before the papers are set to begin.
Similarly, Tamanna Rawat of Seth Anandram Jaipuria School (SAJS) in Ghaziabad has to give four exams on July 16. “I barely got three days to prepare for English, accountancy and business economics. But my friends have their exams in August. This can’t be fair,” the Class 12 passout said.
Not just the schedule, Rawat said her exam centre is in Duhai on the Delhi-Meerut road, some 20km from her house in Vasundhara. “It will take an hour just to reach there. I already don’t have time to prepare for the papers, now it will also take a long time to get to the exam centre,” she rued.
Sajal Mehta of Amity school in Noida said he was lucky to be allotted his exam dates in August, but he still has to appear for four papers in a day. He will give the physics paper on August 6, and the rest — economics, mathematics, English and general test — two days later, all one after the other with no gaps.
“Every question has to be answered within a specific time because at least 40 out of 45 questions have to be attempted. This leaves me with less than a minute to answer them. How is that possible, especially with mathematics questions that are also part of the general test,” he asked.
The teenager pointed out that he had some practice on MCQ-based papers while preparing for the Term 1-CBSE Board exams, but then the pattern of the Term-2 papers was different. “Now, there is very little time because the CUET dates were announced late,” he said.
Mehta, who lives in Sector 62 of Noida, said he was also confused about his exam centre. Till now, his schedule on the CUET website shows “Noida/Greater Noida”.
“I am hoping the exact centre details will be available soon,” he added.
Others said that the CUET papers, to be held between July 15 and August 20, should have been planned better. The schedule should have been announced earlier, and exams should have finished before August, when several colleges across the country begin their academic sessions.
“For instance, Christ University in Bengaluru starts classes in the first week of August. CUET will go on till the third week of August. I would have liked to have some of my options for colleges open,” said Sanya Ganjoo, who passed Class 12 from SAJS-Ghaziabad and is giving four papers in CUET, which is for admissions into central universities.
“We are a troubled lot. All of this is a long process and it will delay our college admissions, which are expected in September now,” she added.
Parents’ too were worried about how their children would cope. CUET results will influence admissions for UG courses in 90 universities, including the coveted Delhi University. Nearly 15 lakh candidates are set to appear for CUET papers over the next few weeks.
Manoj Kataria, founder of the Gautam Budh Nagar Parents Welfare Society (GBPWS), said his daughter Tanisha’s centre was on the Rohtak road, and the family would have to travel from Greater Noida for her papers on June 20. “Besides, the students are worried over delayed results as the exam date was announced so late,” he said.
“A packed schedule and haphazard planning, including exam centres that are located far off, have only added to the stress of the entrance exams. Students and parents now have to rush to arrange travel and logistics to even reach the exam centres,” Yatendra Kasana, president of the All Noida School Parents Association (ANSPA) told TOI.
Kasana added: “Authorities should have been more empathetic to the students’ and parents’ issues.”
District officials said they were aware of the students and parents’ grievances. “I have heard that parents and students are complaining about examination centres being far from their residences,” said Dharamveer Singh, district inspector of schools (DIOS), Gautam Budh Nagar.
For CUET-UG, candidates applied for 54,555 unique combinations of subjects. Accordingly, an advance intimation slip with the date of examination and the city of examination was being issued. The admit cards for the first phase of the exams were made available, with details of exam centres, for download from Tuesday 6pm onwards.