Brief Context
Context The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports tabled its 371st report on the autonomous bodies under the Department of Higher Education. Major Highlights of the Report Performance of NTA: It highlighted the performance of the National Testing Agency (NTA), noting recent irregularities in examinations. Repeated delays and errors in major examinations, including NEET-UG, UGC-NET, CUET, and JEE (Main).
Source Content
Syllabus: GS2/Education
Context
- The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports tabled its 371st report on the autonomous bodies under the Department of Higher Education.
Major Highlights of the Report
- Performance of NTA: It highlighted the performance of the National Testing Agency (NTA), noting recent irregularities in examinations.
- Repeated delays and errors in major examinations, including NEET-UG, UGC-NET, CUET, and JEE (Main).
- It urged that such avoidable errors must not recur.
- Infrastructure Gaps: Persistent gaps in faculty recruitment and infrastructure, including lack of seed grants for new faculty in central universities and UGC-funded institutions, and constraints in implementing Multiple Entry Multiple Exit programs.
- Delays in Online Education: It flagged delays in online and distance education approvals for institutions with lower NAAC accreditation scores, urging the UGC to reconsider these restrictions.
- On Accreditation: It highlighted concerns with the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), which evaluates higher education institutions.
- It called for detailing the extent of irregularities uncovered and the corrective steps taken.
- Reforms needed such as the Basic Accreditation Framework (BAF) and Maturity Based Graded Levels (MBGL) to ensure a more objective, transparent process with limited scope for discretion.
- On Draft UGC Regulations: It recommends that the draft UGC regulations of January 2025 be referred to the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) for wider stakeholder consultation.
- The Committee emphasised that these regulations should uphold both national standards and state autonomy.
Recommendations
- Digital Examinations Held by NTA: It recommended NTA to build greater in-house capacity and place renewed emphasis on pen-and-paper testing to reduce the vulnerabilities associated with digital and outsourced exams.
- It also recommended a nationwide list of blacklisted firms involved in paper-setting and administration to prevent recurrence of lapses.
- Remunerations: It recommends extending the Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) to faculty and non-teaching staff in centrally funded institutions, increasing Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) amounts, and implementing the 7th Pay Commission in ICSSR research institutes.
- Fill Vacancies: It also called for immediate filling of vacancies, implementation of promotions, and appointment of leadership positions across ICSSR research institutions.
- On Governance: The Committee urged greater participatory decision-making in bodies to preserve its autonomous character.
- Accreditation: Highlighting the challenges of implementing NEP 2020, the Committee stressed the need for faster, streamlined accreditation and evaluation processes.
- It also recommended measures to regulate the proliferation of private coaching centres and ensure that examination papers reinforce school curricula rather than parallel coaching syllabi.
Source: HT