Fact Sheet: National Testing Service

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech has announced the setting up of National Testing Agency which will conduct the entrance examinations for higher education and professional institutions which were until now being conducted by various bodies like CBSE, IITs, IIMs and AICTE. CBSE has recently written to UGC about being overburdened with conducting entrance examinations. Due to this, delays can be seen while announcing the results of boards’ examination. Moreover conducting entrance examination is not the primary mandate of CBSE and other such institutions.

Who Recommended National Testing Service?

• The program of action 1992, implementation of National Policy of Education advocated the setting up of national Testing Service.
• It was further recommended by National Knowledge Commission ( 2006-2009 )
• Ashok Mishra Committee on JEE System (2015) has also talked about constituting an independent body to conduct entrance examinations.

Organization of the NTS

• The Cabinet has proposed to set up the NTS as a society under The Indian Societies Act by June 2017.
• A one-time grant of Rs 50 cr will be given. After that the body will become self-reliant by the examination fee.
• It will be subjected to CAG audit to enable transparency.
• It will comprise of subject experts who will enable it to conduct and monitor the tests.
• It will comprise of a governing council headed by director general.

Objectives of NTS

• It will function as a centralized mechanism to establish benchmarks and control the quality.
• It will ease out the burden from other academic institutions.
• It will be set up on the lines of educational testing service of the US.
• A standardized model of test will benefit the students as it will be less time consuming.

Critics of NTS

• Every state has its unique syllabus and variation which suits the local population and allowing NTS to take over a central role will harm the students. For instance there is still a confusion regarding NEET (as Tamil Nadu wants to do away with it, as their higher secondary syllabus is out of sync with it.)
• Some people have also argued about the inability of NTS to recognize certain accomplishments and overall personalities of the students, for instance academic and extracurricular awards while catering the admission to professional institutions.
• Being a central agency, a wrong move can spill over the consequences on the entire nation.

Endnotes

NTS can serve the role of bridging the gap between several boards by comparing their score, as to avoid the ruckus which happened while DU admissions while evaluating the score of different boards for admission. It can also serve as the apex body which ensures that the examination happens in a free and fair manner.