National Testing Agency Might Block Exam Funding for IITs and IIMs

The General Budget 2017-18 presented by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proposed the establishment of a self-sustained premier testing body – National Testing Agency (NTA). NTA will be an autonomous organization that is being set up by the government to relieve the burden of other exam conducting bodies such as CBSE, AICTE, etc.

NTA’s sole function will be to conduct exams like JEE Mains, NEET, NET, etc. in order to give time and space to CBSE, AICTE and other bodies to carry out their main functions. NTA was originally proposed in 1986 but was not implemented, said former UGC Member, MM Ansari.

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Ansari informed that prestigious institutions like IIMs, IITs, other universities and UGC use to save a lot of money as support for their programmes by conducting national-level tests. He also added that NTA will definitely reduce the workload but will stop these saving. No additional resources will be offered by the government that is usually earned from admission tests, said Ansari.

Executive Director of the National Board of Examinations, Prof Dr. Bipin Batra said that NTA is a good idea as most of the educational institutes in India don’t have the infrastructure and expertise to conduct exams. To conduct modern computer-based tests, a lot of investment in IT and infrastructure is required. Development of an organization dedicated for exams will help institutes to pool the assets required for conducting exams.

Most of the exams of national importance such as JEE Mains, NEET, etc. are conducted by CBSE and other central organizations, increasing the workload of these bodies. Some of the regional universities also conduct entrance exams but many such exams are not included in the original mandate.

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Although all the agencies have been contributing their best efforts, setting up NTA will increase harmony and will ease up the work. This will also solve the problem of outsourcing the exam as NTA will solely be responsible for conducting exams.