Advantages and Concerns associated With CUET

The registration for CUET (Common University Entrance Test) began Wednesday, 6^th March. The test is expected to be conducted in the first and second week of July this year. CUET common entrance test is based on the recommendation of NEP (National Education Policy) released last year. The concept Common Entrance Test for Undergraduate Courses was first proposed by Madhuri R Shah Commission in 1984. The CUET aims to do away with the demand for high scores in class 12.

 CUET is said to publish only the score of the candidate and not to deal with the rankings for now. According to UGC, the test besides 45 centralized UGC funded universities, is open to private universities as well. 

The CUET test consists of three parts. Part one comprises of Language Ability Test, Part two is Domain Specific Test, which is questions asked in this section would be based on the domain the candidate applies for, and part third is a Mental Ability Test. The syllabus for CUET is class 12 NCERTs.

 Discussion on CUET through editorial pieces and opinion pages of newspapers have highlighted the advantages and concerns associated with the test. A look at them: 

Advantages

1. An end to the trend of high scoring demand in Class 12 – CUET allows anyone matching the minimum eligibility criteria to apply for the test.  The weightage for class 12th marks is gone.
2. Level Playing field – Education Boards of states across India follow distinct models of evaluation. For instance, a nine-member committee formulated by vice Chancellor DU in December 2021, found that the percentage of students getting admission in Delhi from the Southern Board is higher than that of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana. The number of applicants getting admission into DU from Kerala was greater than the number of students getting admission from five neighbouring states combined.
3. Single test for all central universities – An applicant does not have to run from pillar to post applying to numerous universities now. All the 45 UGC funded Central Universities are mandated to accept a single CUET score for admission for Under Graduate Courses.

Concerns

1. Multiple Choice Questions – It is being argued that Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) fail to access the depth of knowledge of students in a given subject. MCQ questions could not be substituted for analytical reasoning, writing and argumentation in domain-specific streams.
2. Fear of Mushrooming Coaching Institutes – Much like the JEE, NEET. It is apprehended that, CUCET may felicitate the rise of another series of coaching institutes across the country, helping students prepare for the test.
3. Dwindling importance of Board exam – Board exams are considered to be a comprehensive method to access a student's understanding. Now, since board exams do not have a say in admission for UG courses anymore, a student preparing for CUET may ignore Boards to focus on tests. Preparation for the CUET may leave little space for in-depth, long-form textbook learning.
4. Concerns raised by northeastern states – The education minister of Meghalaya has said “From the information, I gathered. Most of the test will be on NCERT, this will bring huge disadvantage to state boards not only in Meghalaya but also in other states”.
5. Regarding College Autonomy – (Furqan Qamar, a former Advisor (Education) Planning Commission writes: Many world-class Universities do not insist singularly on a common method for admission. The time tested SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) exam which is considered the gateway to admission into a college in the USA, has been discontinued by many universities.  In India, since Education is on the concurrent list, the state and centre should come into close consultation for better results.