The University Grants Commission (UGC) is working on a proposal to merge the three biggest entrance exams in the country, namely NEET, JEE Main, and CUET.

UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar said as per the proposal, instead of appearing for the four subjects — mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology — in three entrance exams, students can take the exam once and be eligible for and explore different fields of study, reports Times of India.

The higher education regulator is working out a committee to deliberate with different stakeholders to reach a consensus. “The proposal is, can we integrate all these entrance examinations so that our students are not subjected to multiple entrance examinations based on the same knowledge base? The students should have one single entrance examination, but multiple opportunities to apply among the disciplines,” Times of India quoted Kumar saying.

The objective of the proposal, Kumar said, is that students should not undergo the stress of multiple examinations while they’re being tested in the same set of subjects. “Typically, what are the programmes that are available? Some students may like to go into medicine or engineering. If they don’t get into either, many will in the general education. So is it possible to have only one CUET for all disciplines? The students who would like to go into engineering their marks in mathematics, physics, chemistry can be used as a ranking list and similarly for medicine. If they don’t get into medicine or engineering, under CUET they will still have the opportunity to join different programmes using the same marks of either mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and so on. So therefore, by writing once, in these four subjects, students can try for different opportunities,” he said.

Earlier too, the UGC chairperson had said that the ambit of CUET will be expanded and the commission is considering holding the exam twice a year.  With the merger of exams, over 43 lakh students can be expected to take the CUET – UG entrance exam, making it the biggest test ever.

Based on the CUET result, the final result and rank could be given, if the merger is finalised. Thus, common counselling processes for medical, engineering, arts colleges can continue thereafter as per the current practice.

Inputs from TOI, News 18

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