Many of us might think that the National Testing Agency (NTA) is an experienced and long standing government organisation, but this couldn’t be further from the truth! The 6 year old NTA is just a SOCIETY–not set up by an Act of Parliament, or a PSU, or a public sector commission or board, or a registered company! It is registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, is just a Governing Body with no general body to speak of, and is not subject to the rules that govern the conduct and honesty of government employees.
The UGC -NET and the NEET exam (besides several others, used to be conducted by the CBSE until 2018, which was (and is) a National Board of Education in India for public and private schools, controlled and managed by the Union Government of India.
Question 1: If an autonomous testing agency was required at all, why was the Societies Registration Act a route chosen by the government of India? Why was an Act of Parliament (such as was done to set up UGC or AICTE) not passed, or an autonomous Council created under the Ministry of Education, like the CBSE? Was this route chosen to evade the financial scrutiny and accountability that arises from being a government institution, by virtue of being subject to the comptroller and auditor general (CAG)?
Question 2: The 95 year old CBSE had been conducting several national examinations since the 1970s and the UGC-NET since 2014. Why was the CBSE’s examination wing not expanded to take over the national testing mechanism? The CBSE has well developed protocols for confidentiality and secrecy, and even how to manage finances
Please see:
Why were these not laid down as essential for the NTA to follow? Why in setting up the NTA were there no enforceable guidelines or demands for accountability from the government about paper leaks, selection of experts as paper setters, modalities about conducting the exam, the fees that it can charge, besides accountability for breaches, wrong answer keys, delays, and the like?
Question 3: How can a SOCIETY be one whose memorandum of association is to be found nowhere? It’s because no one can join it, as only the government can decide who its members are, even as it bullies and threatens universities into buying into its ridiculous exam. As per this notification, the NTA is a body whose members are handpicked by the government but whose misconduct and failures, the government takes no responsibility for! It’s a SOCIETY with no General Body either, and its composition is completely lopsided representation of universities. There are over a thousand universities in India and less than a hundred institutes, but the latter far outstrip the former in terms clout in the body.
The answers to these three questions are quite trivial. The fact is that the NTA is a scam no different from the Electoral Bonds, the exit polls scam, or PMCARES scams. Just as in these other malpractices, the scheme is simple—USE THE BRUTE FORCE OF THE STATE TO CREATE A SCHEME FOR RUTHLESS EXTORTION, IN WHICH A FEW PROFIT! #scrapNTA
From the Facebook profile of Ayesha Kidwai, a Professor of Linguistics at the Centre for Linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a translator and activist.