(News) Govt Proposes National Testing Agency (NTA) for all
Academic Entrance Exams
Finance
minister Arun Jaitley Wednesday proposed to establish a National Testing Agency
(NTA) which will conduct all academic entrance examinations and free education
bodies like Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and All India Council
for Technical Education (AICTE) from administration work related to
examinations.
In his budget speech, Jaitley also spoke about reforming
higher education regulator University Grants Commission (UGC) to give more
autonomy to quality higher educational institutions. He also spoke about
government’s renewed focus on online courses to reach a larger student base.
The finance minister also proposed establishing 100 international skill
centres in 2017-18 and reiterated that the government will focus on assessment
of education outcome, a key concern areas in the education sector.
He also proposed to establish an innovation fund for the secondary education
segment.
Though the finance minster skipped mentioning individual allocation on key
education heads in his budget speech, the NTA is a key takeaway.
In the absence of any national testing body, CBSE conducts
major higher education related entrances apart from school leaving exams at
Class 10 and Class 12 level for CBSE affiliated schools. It conducts the Joint
Entrance Exam-main (JEE Main) for engineering schools including Indian
Institutes of Technology (IITs), and the National Eligibility Test for UGC (UGC-NET)
for selecting professors in college and university system. It also conducts the
Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) for appointment of teachers across
several states. It is also in charge of conducting the single medical entrance
test for admission to all MBBS courses.
