After NEET row, NTA faces fresh controversy over repeated UGC NET English questions

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which has been under fire after the NEET UG paper leak, is once again surrounded by controversy after several questions in the UGC NET English paper were found to be identical to those in a paper from two years ago.

According to the Telegraph report, as many as 67 of the 150 questions in the UGC NET 2026 English paper this year are the same as a two-year-old question paper in the NET exams 2024.

The question sequence of the NTA UGC NET English paper matches the 2024 paper, the report added.

UGC NET exam has two papers; Paper 1 comprises 50 questions on reasoning ability and general awareness, which is common for all candidates, while Paper 2 has 100 questions related to the subject.

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UGC NET: Teachers’ raise concerns for national-level exam

As per the media report, academics have blamed the testing agency for failing to prevent repeated questions. One of the academics also suggested the paper was likely set by "dubious experts" who had drawn questions from the old papers.

A former dean of the faculty of education at the University of Delhi (DU), Anita Rampal, said that NTA lacked both the capacity for scrutiny and the academic credentials needed to assess the quality and purpose of the tests it conducted.

The report said that she further added: “This is not how future teachers and researchers should be selected. The NTA has no academic credentials or accountability, prepares poor and mindlessly shallow questions, and even lifts most of those from its own paper.”

Furthermore, the former vice-chancellor of Guru Jambheshwar University called the repetition of questions “academic dishonesty”.

Notably, an email has been sent to the NTA’s director-general (DG) Abhishek Singh seeking his comment on the issue, and a response is awaited, the report said.

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UGC NET June 2026 Exams

UGC NET 2026 for the June session exams were held from June 22 to 30 in two shifts for 87 subjects. NTA also announced a re-exam for the June 22 paper for students who faced technical problems at the Jalandhar exam centre. The UGC NET June 2026 exam for affected candidates has been rescheduled to July 5.

NTA conducts the University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test (UGC NET) twice each year to determine eligibility for Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and Assistant Professor positions, as well as admission to PhD programmes at universities and colleges across India.