The UGC Chairman has said that it is mandatory for all central universities to adopt CUET UG, even if it offers seats on minority quotas.
A few days after the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) announced that it will not be adopting the Common University Entrance Test (CUET UG 2023), the University Grants Commission (UGC) has written a reminder mail to AMU and Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) reiterating that all central universities have to mandatory adopt the entrance test for admission.
“UGC has asked all the Central Universities to use CUET scores for admissions to all the courses. However, this has been observed that Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has opted to participate in CUET-2023 for a limited number of programmes/courses, as was done last year. Please note that all the Central Universities, including AMU, are required to participate for all UG programmes in CUET 2023 to provide equal opportunities to aspiring candidates, which is in the student’s best interests,” the letter stated.
A similar request was made to the universities on February 4 and 9. The letter has also stated that CUET provides a common platform and equal opportunities to candidates across the country, especially those from Northeast, rural, and other remote areas, and helps to establish better connections with the universities. “A single examination enables the candidates to cover a broad outreach and be part of the admission process to various Central and participating Universities,” the letter states.
The AMU representative had earlier claimed that they have not received any specific instruction from the Commission and would therefore continue with the pattern adopted by the university last year. However, the university has not been available for a comment till the time of publication.
Jamia, like last year, has been reluctant in adopting CUET UG. The officials believe that the entrance test leads to severe delay in the admission process. An internal meeting of Jamia officials had concluded that the institute “should allot few courses of UG and PG to CUET as per last year’s practice and conduct its own entrance tests for all the remaining courses to ensure timely admissions etc.”
In the meeting, it was decided that the decision on allotment of courses to the CUET will be taken in the next meeting of the Deans of the Faculties under the Chairmanship of the Vice-Chancellor.
UGC Chief M Jagadesh Kumar has, however, said that CUET is mandatory for all central universities and claimed that about 120 universities have already signed up for the 2023 academic session.
“UGC also has written to all the Central Universities that their UG course admissions should be based on only the CUET score. Last year, UGC permitted a couple of central universities to use CUET scores in a limited number of UG courses since the entrance exam was introduced for the first time. However, from the 2023 academic session onwards, all the central universities must use CUET scores in all the UG course admissions. Even if there are reservations for a particular category of students, such as local students in a central university, they should still use CUET scores only for all categories,” Kumar told indianexpress.com.
While Jamia is yet to decide which courses will be adopted under CUET UG, AMU has released a list of six courses under the entrance test. These are BSc (Hons) Community Science, BA (Hons/Research) — Faculty of Arts, BA (Hons/Research) — Faculty of Social Sciences, BVoc — Production Technology, BVoc — Polymer and Coating Technology, and BVoc — Fashion Design & Garment Technology.
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