Withdrawal of Common University Entrance Test (CUET)

Dated: 08-08-2022

Dr. T. Sumathy (a)Thamizhachi Thangapandian (Chennai South):The recent announcement by the Union Government for the academic year 2022-2023,stating that the University Grants Commission (UGC) for various courses in all Central Universities will admit students only through the Common University Entrance Examination (CUET) conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), is unfortunate.

CUET, similar to NEET, will sideline the diverse school education systems across the country and grossly undermine the relevance of the overall development oriented long-form learning in schools and make students rely upon coaching centres for improving their entrance examination scores.CUET, like NEET, will affect the students who are from non-NCERT syllabi. Any entrance examinationthat is based on NCERT syllabus would put deserving students from other syllabi at a disadvantage and will not provide an equal opportunity to all students who have studied in varied State Board syllabi across the country. In most states, State Board syllabus students constitute more than 80% of the total student population and these students invariably hail from the marginalised sections.

The Hon’ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has written to the Hon’ble Prime Minister, requesting him to withdraw the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admissions to all the Central Universities. Therefore, I urge upon the union government to immediately withdraw thenewly proposed Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admissions in all Central Universities.