English
One of the highlight of the Union Budget 2017-18 in regards the Education Sector was the proposal of setting up a National Testing Agency for all Entrance Examinations. While the industry leaders welcomed the suggestion, the masses were left confused at the positive of such a step. We discuss what the proposal made by Hon’ble Finance Minister, Mr. Arun Jaitely entails, and more importantly, how students would benefit from the same.
Before we explain the long term implications of setting a National Testing Agency or NTA, we must understand the present practice. As of today, different national and state level boards conduct entrance examinations for admission to different courses. One of the largest board is undoubtedly the CBSE which conducts exams like JEE Main, NEET, CTET and UGC NET examinations. These examinations are conducting for admissions to engineering, medical, and teacher training courses respectively. Apart from CBSE, boards like the National Board for Education along with various State Boards conduct entrance examinations for admissions. The proposal is to free these boards from conducting the entrance examinations. Instead, constitute a National Testing Agency which would be incharge of conducting all entrance examinations in the future.
How will it benefit students?
The first question that is raised is the obvious…how would a National Testing Agency help students? Well, from a strictly student point of view, the direct benefits are non existent. Franklly, how does it matter who is conducting the examination…right? Well wrong. Who conducts the examination, does matter. Not only is it an added task for these boards to conduct the examination, it requires unifying and presenting a single testing platform, which is often difficult. Let us understand with the help of an example.
Let us take the JEE Main 2017 examination for instance. It is a common known fact that the best engineering institutes in the country are the Indian Institutes of Technology. Every child who aspires to be an engineer dreams of finding a place in the elite IITs of the country. For the same, they must, however, first qualify the JEE Main examination and then go on to write the JEE Advanced. The examination is uniform for students from all across the country. However, the difference comes for students from various states. The Boards have all a different curriculum, focus on different syllabus and while the actual content remains the same, there are some fine differences that can and do matter. More so if you are completing with lakhs of students. For a student who is writing a State Board, the fact that the paper is managed by CBSE might make a difference. Setting up a central testing body would smoothen this difference and in reality provide a single platform for all students to compete on.
The other benefit is the administrative benefit. Conducting a national level examination takes up a lot of resources. Let’s take for instance the NEET 2017 examination which would be conducted for admission to Medical Seats across the country. About 10 lakh students are expected to write the examination. As such, the conducting authority, CBSE again, would be required to not only devote extra resources to the exercise but the administrative costs alone of conducting an exam would be extraordinary. While these forms have a cost, the comparison is not even close. These funds and time and man power can be, under an NTA, be devoted to improving the quality of education, focusing on revising curriculum and providing a better learning experience for students of CBSE affiliated schools.
Hence, while it might appear that the NTA is not a direct benefit, it can be safely said that it is a welcome proposal and would benefit students in the long run.
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