The National Testing Agency (NTA) is set to undergo a significant transformation from next year onwards. According to the announcement made by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, NTA will now focus exclusively on conducting higher education entrance exams, including NEET-UG 2025, CUET-UG 2025, and UGC NET 2025. This major overhaul is based on the recommendations of a high-level committee set up by the Education Ministry and Chaired by former ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan, which aimed to address concerns about exam leaks, technical glitches, and lack of transparency in the exam process. As part of this restructuring, the NTA will not conduct recruitment exams, allowing it to concentrate on refining its processes for higher education entrance exams.
Panel suggests multi-level exam format
The high-level committee suggested a multi-level exam format for the national exams, which includes the introduction of the Digi-exam system, multi-session testing and expansion of testing centres. Laying down a roadmap for testing centres, the panel suggested that it was possible to integrate such testing centres from Kendriya Vidyalayas, Navodaya Vidyalayas, reputable universities and institutes to establish a nationwide network of about 400-500 testing centres within a time frame of a year or so, which would provide about 2-2. 5 lakh testing capacity for conducting CBT in one session nationwide.
The panel has suggested a multi-stage exam format for the medical entrance exam (NEET UG) along with the oversight mechanism for coaching centres and ‘election style’ coordination with state governments for conducting high-stake exams.
Panel suggests permanent staff
As a part of the reformations, the centres’ high-level committee has advised against permanent staffing in the National Testing Agency (NTA), instead recommending longer tenure for executives and domain experts with attractive service conditions. Suggesting a restructuring of the NTA, the committee noted that the agency should have an “empowered and accountable” governing body with three designated sub-committees to oversee test audit, ethics and transparency; nomination and staff conditions; and stakeholder relationships.
This panel was set up this year after finding irregularities in the conduct of medical entrance exam NEET UG, and PhD entrance exam NET. This panel was created by the testing agency to study the functioning of the NTA. The high-level panel included former AIIMS-Delhi director Randeep Guleria; Central University of Hyderabad Vice-Chancellor BJ Rao; K Ramamurthy, professor emeritus in IIT-Madras’ Department of Civil Engineering; People Strong co-founder and Karmayogi Bharat board member Pankaj Bansal; IIT-Delhi Dean of Student Affairs Aditya Mittal; and Govind Jaiswal, a joint secretary in the education ministry. The committee was also tasked with examining the existing security protocols related to the setting of papers and other processes for various examinations and making recommendations to enhance the robustness of the system.
The panel co-opted two IIT-Kanpur academics as members — Amey Karkare, professor of Computer Science and Engineering, and Debapriya Roy, an assistant professor.
(With inputs from agencies)
