By: Mr Ankit Kapoor
Being one of the major reforms introduced to the Indian Education system in the recent times, the Central Universities common entrance test (CUCET) is an All-India test for admission various Under-graduate/Integrated, Post-Graduate and research programs in Central/State Universities of India. Having a major change in this academic year, CUCET has been named the common entrance test for admissions to 41 central universities including JNU, DU and BHU.
It is anticipated that the CUCET will be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA).
Recently, Delhi University has also hinted to conduct the admission process for the Academic year 2022 through CUCET and based on class XII marks. Though it is known that CUCET is not an entirely unfamiliar entrance test but the central universities have been conducting it until the last year for admissions. While the major difference would be that the earlier version of CUCET were conducted in the offline mode and now the proposal is to conduct the test as a Computer Based Test (CBT), which, with complete details of the exam is expected to be revealed soon.
Various suggestions were recommended under the New Education Policy (NEP, some of which were to change the current setup of 10+2 to 5+3+3+4. The graduation was also modified to 4 year program with various exit points for the student. If a student exits the program in one year you get a graduation certificate, similarly, if a student exits after two years a student will get a graduation diploma. A student who completes three years gets a degree. Similarly, the CUCET was also a suggestion provided in this NEP.
Why CUCET?
The new education policy 2020 proposed a common entrance test for higher education. This will scrap the current domination of marks among the students. Over a period of time, we have seen the sky-scraping cut offs of Delhi University creating a lot of pressure on the students and the parents to get the best so that they get admission in these colleges.
There will be no stream instead there will be a multi-disciplinary setup with the option to choose a foreign language and more emphasis on critical thinking.
This will enable students to have a varied knowledge of the subjects. For example, a student wants to pursue Math Hons with it now it is possible to take history as a subject. This is the most important recommendation of the new education policy called multi-disciplinary.
The expected CUCET approach
The Computer based aptitude test will test the students on
- Section A: Common Aptitude Test
- Section B: Domain-Specific Test
The CUCET entrance test will be compulsory for the students who seek admission to all the universities, and experts believe that it is absolutely the need of the hour to introduce a common admission test for all the universities. It is very important for the following reasons:
- The rising cut-offs of the universities create unnecessary pressure on the students
- Equal Opportunities to all the students
- This will enable the students to understand the importance of APTITUDE BUILDING and will make them market ready.
- The quality of students will get enhanced
- This will aim to give students holistic development
This change of conducting one exam is the change for good and will allow students to experience equal opportunity in the real sense. For this, students need to continuously strive towards honing their skills and understand the importance of aptitude building. The entrance exam like the CUCET will give not only an equal opportunity to all the students but also a chance to the universities to gauge the aptitude level of the students.
The writer is Co-founder & Director, Pratham Test Prep
