Multiple student organisations protested in the capital against the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) decision to conduct retests for UGC NET exams in English, Commerce, and Sociology due to errors identified in the question papers.
Photo : TN Innovations
Several student organisations on Monday (August 17) staged demonstrations in the capital city against NTA’s decision to hold a retest for UGC NET examinations in three subjects, seeking the dismantling of the testing agency, whose “repeated lapses” have put the future of millions at stake, as reported by PTI.
The latest row follows the National Testing Agency’s announcement of a re-examination for English, Commerce and Sociology nearly two months after the conclusion of its June session.
The decision to conduct a re-test for the given papers has been taken following an expert panel’s findings of factual, typographical, translation and language-related errors in the question papers, which were previously described by agency sources as “Not Unusual.”
Voicing students’ concerns, the All India Students’ Association (AISA) held protests at the NTA headquarters at Okhla Industrial Estate, demanding the scrapping of the agency, claiming that the cancellation was “yet another instance of systemic mismanagement and lack of accountability,” according to PTI.
The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) also agitated at the NTA office in Okhla, calling for nationwide demonstrations against the agency.
‘Students Shouldn’t Have to Pay the Price for NTA’s Lapses’: ABVP Secretary
In addition, RSS’ student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), expressed reservations about the re-examination, stating that serious errors in a national-level test raised questions over the credibility of the examination process.
ABVP National General Secretary Virendra Singh said that students shouldn’t bear the cost of the agency’s lapses and demanded accountability at every stage of question-paper preparation and examination management.
“Serious errors in a national-level examination like UGC-NET are deeply concerning. Students should not have to pay the price for NTA’s lapses,” Solanki said.
AISA, which is affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation, claimed that when students and youth assembled at the NTA headquarters, police detained the protesters.
“We strongly condemn the brutal detention of protesting students,” AISA said, claiming, “Police action was a continuation of the repression witnessed during earlier student movements over examination irregularities,” according to the news agency.
No immediate response was available from the police.
AISA further said the recent row is yet another instance of the crisis created by the NTA model, alleging that reports regarding irregularities in the Sociology paper, including the circulation of a PDF purportedly containing questions and answers from within the NTA system, had surfaced.
