CUET 2023 will be glitch-free: UGC Chairman Jagadesh Kumar shares Plan B

NEW DELHI: After the first-edition of Common University Entrance Test (CUET 2023) for undergraduate (UG) admission 2023 in central universities and other participating institutes was marred by glitches, the University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman announced various steps taken to conduct the second edition of CUET UG 2023 exam glitch-free.

Agreeing that the students who appeared in the debut CUET exam faced several challenges, including server issues, last-minute exam center change and delays, the UGC chairman M Jagadesh Kumar told PTI that “this year all issues have been ironed out”.

“Keeping in mind the experience of the students, a plan has been chalked out and we are ready to ensure that the candidates just have to worry about the exam and not any glitches,” he said.

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CUET 2023: Changes introduced

In line with that, the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced major changes in this year’s CUET UG 2023 exam. As per the new changes introduced, the CUET UG 2023 exam will be held in three slots unlike last year where students were allowed to appear in just two shifts for the 3 hour and 15 minute exam.

The number of subject choices has also been increased to 10 this year. Taking into consideration students' complaints about lengthy CUET question papers, the NTA has reduced the number of questions to be attempted in CUET exam 2023. While Section 1A and 1B has the same pattern, the number of questions to be attempted in section 2 and 3 has been reduced.

The education ministry had informed the Parliament in December 2022 that CUET 2023 received a maximum of 65,000 complaints. Of which, the NTA had received a majority of 47,835 grievances for rescheduling the CUET exam date or centre.

The number of help centers has also been increased this year to help applicants fill the CUET application form 2023. Each CUET help center will have one dedicated technical person in-charge who will help the candidates in CUET registration 2023 free of cost.

Also read | CUET 2023 Handbook: New changes, more exam centres and counselling

CUET 2023 Plan B

UGC Chairman said:“extra computers and extra centres have been arranged as plan B so that in case there are any glitches, the candidates can be shifted there and the exam for a particular shift will not be cancelled.”

On normalization of scores, he told the PTI: “The schedule of the exam has been compressed this year to 10 days instead of over one and half month in order to minimize any errors in the normalisation as the variation is more when the exam is held over a bigger period of time.”

Over 11.5 lakh candidates have registered this year and at least 168 universities have opted for CUET 2023. As the number of universities opting to admit students in its UG, PG programmes, the NTA announced to extend the CUET registration last date 2023 to March 30.

Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar further said that he is expecting the number of applications to cross last year’s count.

With 14.9 lakh registrations, CUET became the second largest entrance examination in the country after the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET UG 2023) and pushed the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE Main 2023) to third place.

A data released by the NTA last year showed that the maximum number of candidates who appeared for the CUET exam were from Uttar Pradesh (49,915), followed by Bihar (20,840), Madhya Pradesh (19,032), Delhi (16,885) and Rajasthan (14,982).

Amid the speculations on whether JEE, NEET, CUET will be merged, the UGC chief said that the announcement will be made at least two years in advance so the students can prepare accordingly.