Centre’s high-level panel on NTA reforms to seek suggestions from students, parents

The seven-member panel formed by the government to review the functioning of the National Testing Agency (NTA) will first reach out to students and parents to know their concerns and take suggestions on how to create a robust and tamper-proof system for entrance examinations in the country, the panel’s chairperson K Radhakrishnan has said.

The panel headed by Radhakrishnan, who has served as the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the board of governors of the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur, will give its recommendations to the education ministry within the next 2 months on the reform in the mechanism of the examination process, improvement in data security protocols, and structure and functioning of the NTA.

The panel held its first meeting at IIT-Delhi campus on Monday.

“Our top priority is to elicit from the students and parents of this country their concerns and their suggestions,” Radhakrishanan was heard saying in a video shared by the ministry.

Radhakrishnan said that the committee will reach out to parents and students in person or through electronic media over the next two weeks.

“The next priority for us is to quickly build a robust system to start the tests. We are also looking to the future, especially developing a robust system, a tamper-proof system – one with zero error and that lessens difficulties and stress for students with adequate flexibility built in range,” he said.

According to officials, the committee was apprised of the current process followed by the agency for entrance examinations, technical expertise of the agency, and recent incidents of irregularities witnessed during the NEET-UG, and UGC-NET.

The panel has been formed at a time when the NTA is under scanner over alleged irregularities in the conduct of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for Undergraduate programs (NEET-UG) this year, the cancellation of University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) due to paper leak on the darknet, and the postponement the CSIR-UGC-NET.

Following uproar, the Centre sacked NTA chief Subodh Kumar Singh, and replaced him with Indian Administrative Service officer Pradeep Singh Kharola.

The other members of the Radhakrishnan committee include former AIIMS-Delhi director Randeep Guleria, Hyderabad university vice chancellor Professor BJ Rao, Professor Ramamurthy K from IIT Madras, among others.