UGC-NET paper leak, NEET row NTA’s failure: Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan
Aksheev Thakur
New Delhi, June 20
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday said the paper leak cases of NEET-UG and UGC-NET showed the institutional failure of the National Testing Agency (NTA).
Govt committed to zero-error exam
The government is committed to holding a zero-error exam. Errors in NEET exam are limited to specific regions. An isolated incident shouldn’t affect lakhs of students who cleared exams rightfully. — Dharmendra Pradhan, Education minister
He accepted that the inquiry conducted till now in NEET-UG showed evidence of “errors in some regions”. He announced that a high-level reforms committee would be constituted to look into the functioning of the NTA.
“Recommendations will be expected from the high-level committee to further improve NTA, its structure, functioning, examination process, transparency and data security protocol,” the minister said.
On the arrests made by the Bihar Police and confessions of four candidates and the middlemen in connection with the alleged NEET-UG paper leak, Pradhan said: “The Bihar Police are doing a good job. They will submit a detailed report to the Centre soon. They have probed one isolated incident. We will take final action on it soon. We are satisfied with their investigation.”
The Education Minister said the UGC-NET exam was cancelled because the Home Ministry’s I4C committee, which works on cyber crime, got the input that the dark net had leaked questions of the UGC-NET exam.
Meanwhile, the CBI has registered a case against unknown accused persons on the basis of a complaint received from the Secretary, Department of Education, over the cancelled UGC-NET examination.