UGC changes qualifying criterion for NET

Updated on: Monday, October 08, 2012

Alarge number of teaching aspirants who appeared for the National Eligibility Test (NET) of the University Grants Commission (UGC) recently, are disappointed with the commission's decision to change the qualifying criterion post publication of the results.

A number of candidates are planning to file a petition against the commission for the alteration of the criteria, post-result . As per the original UGC notification, anyone in the general category who scores 155 marks would be eligible for consideration for the final result. However, the 155 marks score used to be the qualifying total of all the three papers — 100, 100 and 150 marks respectively — and not the aggregate, but now only those with an aggregate of 65% for the three papers, which means 227.5 marks, will make the cut.

For the SC/ST category, the new qualification cut-off will be 192.5 and for OBC candidates, it is 210 marks.

"We are discussing with others to move to the court against the commission's decision. I have scored above the qualifying criterion of 155 marks and my aggregate is above 60%, but not 65% as per the new criteria. This is unfair. They can't change the rules after conducting the exam and publishing the results. Just a day next to the announcement of results, they had put up an undated notification on the website about the new criteria ," says Supriya Gulati, a teaching aspirant who appeared for the exam.

The UGC NET exam is conducted twice a year. Comprising three papers, papers I and II used to be objective, while paper III was subjective. But, June 2012 onwards, all the three papers have been made objective.

Surender Singh, deputy secretary, UGC (NET) says, "There is no new criterion. The UGC had already notified during inviting applications that the minimum eligibility marks scored by candidates in each paper would be considered for the preparation of the final result. The methodology for qualifying, after making the exam totally objective had to change, which we had notified. The aspirants must have interpreted it in their favour."

The notification as mentioned by Singh, on the UGC website (www.ugcnetonline.in) states "... the final qualifying criteria for Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and eligibility for lectureship shall be decided by the UGC before the publication of (the) result." In all 5,75,000 candidates took the exam, of which 43,957 have qualified it.
 

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