Cabinet clears national agency for conducting entrance exams

Union Cabinet on Friday approved the creation of a single testing agency — National Testing Agency (NTA) — for conducting entrance examinations for higher education.

NTA has been created to relieve the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) from the burden of conducting a number of examinations, including National Eligibility Test (NET). The move, however, was announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during this year's budget.

"NTA will initially conduct those entrance examinations that are currently being conducted by CBSE. Other examinations will be taken up gradually after NTA is fully geared up," a statement from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) said.

Such entrance examinations will be conducted online at least twice-a-year, thereby giving adequate opportunity to candidates to bring out their best, the statement added.

The government will also establish training centres at district and sub-district level to train students from rural areas in taking online exams.

HRD Ministry will appoint an eminent educationist to chair NTA while the government will appoint the CEO who will also be the Director General. NTA will have a Board of Governors comprising members from other institutions. The Director General will be assisted by 9 verticals headed by academicians/ experts.

Expense & Aim

• Government will give Rs 25 crore grant to NTA to start its operations. 
• NTA is set to benefit about 40 lakh students appearing in various entrance examinations.