UGC-NET Fiasco: Joshi Orders Audit of NTA Exam Processes

New Delhi: As the National Testing Agency (NTA) once again came under fire over question-paper errors that led to the re-examination of three UGC-NET subjects, Union education minister Pralhad Joshi on Monday met the secretary of the Department of Higher Education and directed the agency to conduct a thorough audit of all examination processes and submit a report on corrective action taken.

The minister issued the directions at a meeting attended by NTA director general Abhishek Singh, where the agency’s internal processes and protocols were reviewed. The NTA is reworking its systems to ensure that examinations are conducted fairly and without errors.

Joshi directed the agency to strictly comply with established examination protocols and carry out a complete overhaul of its confidential operations architecture, secluded rooms, air-gapped systems and device-deposit protocols on a war footing.

The minister was also briefed on organisational reforms initiated at the NTA following recent problems. More than 50 staff members have been removed, while professionals are being recruited for key leadership positions.

“Ten new professional leadership positions, including chief technology officer, chief finance officer, CISO, GM (test security) and GM (R and D and psychometrics), have been advertised and are being onboarded,” the ministry said.

Domain specialists from the private sector are also being brought in for cybersecurity, psychometrics, question-paper design and other specialised areas.

The action follows the NTA’s announcement late on Sunday that it would conduct re-tests for English, Commerce and Sociology papers of the UGC-NET June 2026 examination after a committee found multiple errors. English and Commerce will be held again on September 9 and Sociology on September 10.

Sources said candidates would not be charged an additional fee for the re-examination and that the number of qualifying candidates and subject-wise allocations would not be reduced because of the re-test.

The NTA had conducted UGC-NET June 2026 from June 22 to 30 across 87 subjects for Junior Research Fellowship, eligibility for appointment as assistant professors and admission to PhD programmes.

The agency constituted a committee after receiving complaints about errors in the three papers. The panel found factual, typographical and translation errors, misspelt names of scholars, garbled book titles, grammatical and punctuation mistakes and repetition of questions used in earlier examinations.

The NTA is now reviewing processes involved in setting, moderating, translating and composing question papers to prevent such errors at source and fix responsibility for lapses.