CUET-UG issues in J&K being addressed: UGC chief

Jammu, February 23

The University Grants Commission (UGC) does not want to be a regulator but a facilitator and it wants to transform the higher education sector, its chairman Jagadesh Kumar said on Friday. The UGC chief said seven times more students appeared from J&K last year in the Common University Entrance Test-Undergraduate (CUET-UG) to get admission in the best of universities across the country. He said the issues faced by candidates in the previous edition would be addressed this year.

Matter raised last year

• L-G Manoj Sinha had last year raised the issue of lack of CUET exam centres in Jammu and Kashmir, saying several candidates were allotted centres which were over 300 km away.
• “UGC does not want to be a regulator but a facilitator. It wants to work with the stakeholders to bring transformation in the higher education sector,” says UGC Chairman Jagadesh Kumar.

Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha had last year raised the issue of lack of CUET examination centres in J&K with Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, saying various candidates were allotted centres which were over 300 km away. “UGC does not want to be a regulator but a facilitator. It wants to work with the stakeholders to bring transformation in higher education with the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) which was announced in 2020,” Kumar told reporters on the sidelines of the conference on the NEP at the Indian Institute of Management here.

The conference was held to deliberate on the implementation of the NEP in higher education institutes in J&K and Ladakh. On the past problems with the CUET, Kumar said, “There were some issues faced by the students. These have been addressed. Last year, it was a computer-based test but now we are introducing OMR. The CUET will be conducted in hybrid mode so that colleges and schools are used as centres and our students get an opportunity to appear in the exam nearby.”

Earlier, admissions in universities were based on board marks and that put a lot of stress on the students, he said. That stress level has gone down with the introduction of the CUET, he added.