More Blunders: Editorial on the Nta’s Repeated Lapses and the Erosion of Students’ Trust
The Editorial Board | 18 August 2026 | The Telegraph
The National Testing Agency’s failures continue to multiply. After having failed to prevent leaks in several crucial examinations, the NTA has been left with egg on its face yet again. India’s premier body for conducting examinations has had to cancel three papers — in English, Commerce and Sociology — of the UGC-NET and ask for retests. UGC-NET determines admission to PhD programmes and Junior Research Fellowships; it also sets the eligibility criteria for assistant professorships. The retests — they will add to the anxiety and the exhaustion of students — cannot deflect attention from the blunders of the NTA. In these tests, many questions were repeated from earlier exams. The sociology question paper was pockmarked with errors in spelling and included questions that were extraneous to the syllabus. That was not all. There was considerable delay in releasing the answer keys on the NTA’s part. This has led to concern about admission processes getting delayed in universities. Astonishingly, reports suggest that the anomalies had been reported to the NTA immediately after the tests: the body simply sat on them for weeks.
All this lends credence to the legitimate questions regarding the NTA’s competence and commitment. Thus far, every error on its part has been met with the response — hollow pledge — of reforms, ranging from technology-aided surveillance, GPS tracking of question papers, appointment of efficient officials and so on. The government has enacted legal deterrents too. Yet, the list of the NTA’s failures continues to lengthen. The institution’s apathy is telling given the times. Paper leaks and retests have led to students suffering — even death. In response, a spirited youth movement gathered force, demanding and, after overcoming severe challenges by the State, succeeding in forcing a Union education minister to resign. Yet, the NTA bungles on, adding to the woes of the student fraternity, making the government susceptible to criticism, and embarrassing the nation. The executive’s hold on this institution has never been in doubt. A new education minister has already been appointed. When would the NTA get its act together? Still better, why not return the right to conduct exams to individual universities?