With CUCET being named as the common entrance test for admissions to 54 Central universities, ANKIT KAPOOR tells you what the students can expect from it

Being one of the major reforms introduced to the education system in recent times, the Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET) is an All-India test for admission various under-graduate/integrated, post-graduate and research programmes in Central/State universities of India. Having a major change in this academic year, CUCET has been named the common entrance test for admissions to 54 central universities.

It is anticipated that the CUCET will be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). Recently, Delhi University has also hinted to conduct the admission process for 2021 through CUCET and based on Class XII marks. CUCET is not an entirely unfamiliar entrance test, the Central universities have been conducting it until last year for admissions. While the major difference would be that the earlier version of CUCET was conducted in the offline mode and now the proposal is to conduct the test as a Computer Based Test (CBT), which, with complete details of the exam is expected to be revealed soon.

The New Education Policy 2020 proposed a common entrance test for higher education. This will scrap the current domination of marks among the students. Over a period of time, we have seen the sky-scraping cut-offs of Delhi University creating a lot of pressure on the students and the parents to get the best so that they get admission to these colleges.

There will be no stream instead there will be a multi-disciplinary setup with the option to choose a foreign language and more emphasis on critical thinking.

This will enable students to have a varied knowledge of the subjects. For example, a student wants to pursue Math Hons with it now it is possible to make history as a subject. This is the most important recommendation of NEP called multi-disciplinary.

The expected CUCET approach.

The Computer-based aptitude test will test the students on:

• Verbal Aptitude
• Logical Reasoning
• Quantitative Aptitude

The CUCET entrance test will be compulsory for the students who seek admission to all the universities, and experts believe that it is absolutely the need of the hour. It is important for the following reasons:

• The rising cut-offs of the universities create unnecessary pressure on the students
• Equal opportunities to all the students
• This will enable the students to understand the importance of aptitude building and will make them market-ready.
• The quality of students will get enhanced
• This will aim to give students holistic development

This change of conducting one exam is the change for good and will allow students to experience equal opportunity in the real sense. For this, students need to continuously strive towards honing their skills and understand the importance of aptitude building.

The writer is Managing Director — Pratham Test Prep