UGC planning to merge JEE, NEET with CUET under 'One nation, one entrance' plan

The University Grant Commission is planning to merge the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) and Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) with the Common University Entrance Test (CUET). If the said plan is turned into a rule, then students will only have to appear in a single entrance exam that will offer them a wide variety of career options. As per media reports, University Grants Commission (UGC) chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar on Friday stated that the centre was looking at introducing the combined entrance exam at the earliest. It is expected that the said integrated entrance test will become effective by next year, Kumar added.

Centre plans to combine NEET, JEE into CUET, says UGC Chairman

Notably, there are three major entrance examinations, that is, NEET, JEE (Main), and CUET, and every year a large number of aspirants take part in these entrance examinations. All of these examinations are conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). According to the UGC Chairman, the centre intends to combine all three entrance exams for admission to multiple disciplines.

NEET is held for the selection of eligible students for medical courses such as MBBS, BDS, and JEE Main, which allows admission of qualified candidates to various other engineering courses including NIITs, IIITs, and other government-affiliated technical colleges, while the JEE-Advanced exam is for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs), the UGC Chairperson stated that all those subjects coming under NEET and JEE are already in CUET and therefore the integration of all entrance examinations into one test will be easy. 

According to reports, the integrated CUET-UG Exam will comprise the NCERT syllabus and the NTA will be asked to strictly follow the class 12 syllabus for all disciplines, including the subjects that are present in NEET and JEE.

Meanwhile, reports claim that the Union Ministry of Education and UGC have started discussions to prepare the stakeholders. It is important to mention here that UGC is also expected to form a committee including experts from different fields and then decide further on forming a single entrance examination system. Also, it has come to light that the said examination will be conducted twice a year to provide more opportunities to the students.

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