Picture for representational purpose only.

NEW DELHI: The National Testing Agency will take over majority of the examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education from 2019.

Union minister for human resource development, Prakash Javadekar , told TOI, that barring the board examinations (class X and XII), rest of the examinations conducted by the CBSE will be taken over by the NTA in phased manner.

The minister also said that the appointment of the director general of the NTA will be announced soon.

The NTA will start its operations with the Joint Engineering Entrance (JEE) and National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET UG) for admissions to medical/ dental programmes from 2019.

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, last year in November cleared the proposal for creation of the NTA. The aim is to bring in high reliability, standardised difficulty level for assessing the aptitude, intelligence and problem solving abilities of students.

It will relieve CBSE, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and other agencies from responsibility of conducting various entrance examinations such as JEE, NEET, UGC’s National Eligibility Test (twice a year), Central Teacher Eligibility Test (twice a year) and the entrance test for Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas.

“From 2019 the National Testing Agency will start taking over the various entrance examinations conducted by bodies such as CBSE, which conducts 24 different examinations and AICTE. It will be done in a phased manner and will start by relieving CBSE of various entrance examinations it conducts. So that CBSE can concentrate on the Board examinations alone,” said Javadekar,

The NTA will be headed by a director general, whose nomination is likely to be announced soon.

It has been learnt that the names have already been shortlisted by the prime minister’s office and soon the MHRD would be intimated of the same. Meanwhile the MHRD is also likely to announce the appointment of the chairman of NTA by April 2018.

“The DG will be an eminent academician. For the post of chairperson too the ministry has received a number of application and an announcement in this regard is expected soon,” said a senior HRD official.

The NTA is being created as a society registered under the Indian Societies Registration Act, 1860, and as an autonomous and self-sustained premier testing organisation to conduct entrance examinations for higher educational institutions.

Under the NTA, the entrance examinations will be conducted in online mode at least twice a year, thereby giving adequate opportunity to candidates to bring out their best, said a statement.

In order to serve the requirements of the rural students, it would locate the centres at sub-district and district level and as far as possible would undertake hands-on training to the students.

The NTA will be chaired by an eminent educationist. The CEO will be the director general, who will be appointed by the government and there will be a Board of Governors comprising members from user institutions.

