Changes in qualifying criteria disappoint NET aspirants

Many students, who have taken the National Eligibility Test (NET) of the University Grants Commission, are not happy with the commission’s recent step to bring some changes in the qualifying criteria for the teaching test. The UGC has made this announcement after declaration of the result.

Some candidates are thinking to file a petition against the commission for making changes in the criteria which they announced post-result. According to the previous criteria those who have secured 155 marks would be eligible for consideration for the final result. But as per the new criteria now for Neet Ug 2018 only those who have an aggregate of 65% for the three papers, which stands 227.5 marks, will be eligible. For SC/ST category candidates the new qualifying cut-off will be 192.5 and for OBC candidates it will be 210 marks.

The UGC conducts NET exam twice in a year. There were three separate papers, papers I and II used to be objective type, while paper III was subjective. But from this year all the papers have been made objective type only.

Surender Singh, deputy secretary, UGC (NET) says, "There is no new criterion. The UGC had already notified during inviting applications that the minimum eligibility marks scored by candidates in each paper would be considered for the preparation of the final result. The methodology for qualifying, after making the exam totally objective had to change, which we had notified. The aspirants must have interpreted it in their favour."

But the question remains how, despite huge faculty shortage in the higher education sector, the exam is receiving relatedly cold response. An HRD ministry official, who also declined to be named, said permanent faculty appointments are relatively slow in government institutions and in the private sector, many a times institutions hire non-NET candidates as contract teachers to do the job and pay them below the UGC salary scale.

CBSE reasoned that when high-stake exams like NEET are happening once a year, why should UGC-NET not follow it.

Besides, CBSE and HRD recently decided to conduct the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) once a year instead of twice. CTET is an eligibility test for recruitment of school teachers. Both CBSE and UGC function under the Union HRD ministry.

Mukesh Maheshwari is an Owner and Editor of www.way2college.com, Here he is sharing a details of 100+ courses and 22000 colleges or Universities.