Under the union government of India, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is a board of education for public and private schools. The NCERT curriculum is followed in all the schools affiliated to CBSE. The CBSE is also responsible for conducting various competitive exams as well as class 10 and 12 board exams. The competitive exams include – JEE (Joint Engineering Entrance), UGC’s National Eligibility Test, National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET), entrance test for Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, and Central Teacher Eligibility Test.
About the exams
JEE is conducted once a year and consists of two parts – JEE Main and JEE Advanced. They follow an objective pattern and are conducted for admission to various engineering colleges in the country. UGC’s National Eligibility Test is conducted twice in a year and is conducted to test the eligibility for the post of college and university level lectureship. The Junior Research Fellowship award is also given on the basis of this test. The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is an entrance test that every medical aspirant should attempt in order to gain admission in private and government aided colleges. This examination is for the MBBS, MD/MS, and BDS courses and is conducted once in a year. In order to get a teaching job in government schools for classes 1 to 8, one needs to pass the Central Teacher Eligibility Test. It is conducted twice a year and there are different forms of this examination. Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas are schools for gifted children and the entrance test for such schools is conducted by CBSE.
What and How
Every year close to 40 lakh candidates appear for the professional examinations and 27 lakh students appear for the board examinations conducted by CBSE. The first examination to come under the umbrella of NTS (National Testing Service) is NEETI (National Entrance Examination for Technical Institution). NEETI will be introduced in 2018 for students seeking admission to various engineering courses and colleges all over India.
NTS will be the largest exam conducting agency in the country once the cabinet grants permission to NTS to conduct these exams that are being conducted by CBSE at present.
Expert Opinion
An official familiar with the matter said that the focus of this decision was not on the numbers but on providing a professional online standardized test that was scientific. Also, the ministry wants to reduce the burden on CBSE and Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) to enable them to work on other key areas. This way, Central Board of Secondary Education can focus on providing a better quality of school education, provide a better curriculum and improve the standards.
This motive behind this proposal of the government is to improve the standards of education and to conduct all examinations under a single agency. Will this decision provide the desired results? Only time will tell.