UGC NET results leave students an angry lot

‘Qualification norms changed after publication of result’

A group of candidates, who appeared for the National Eligibility Test (NET) of the University Grants Commission, are preparing to move the Court against an alleged post-result alteration of the Test’s qualification norms by the Commission.

The NET results were published on September 18. After the publication of the results, the Commission allegedly altered the Test’s qualification norms by mandating that candidates in the general category score an aggregate of 65 per cent for all three of the NET’s papers to become eligible for lectureship.

For OBC, SC/ST

The corresponding figure for the OBC category is 60 per cent and that of the SC/ST category is 55 per cent.

Bincy Verghese, who wrote the NET for Malayalam language, told The Hindu here on Wednesday that in the original notification of the UGC it was specified that candidates in the general category should score at least 40 per cent for papers one and two and 50 per cent for paper three to be eligible for consideration for the final preparation of the result.

“There was no aggregate mentioned. I, for instance have scored 62 each for papers one and two and 98 for paper three. According to the original UGC notification, anyone in the general category who scores 155, would become eligible for consideration for the final result. Now, only those with 65 per cent or 227.5 marks will make the cut. I have not qualified. This new criterion was made known to us only after the publication of the results. Already about 30 candidates have come together to file a court case,” she explained.

In the same manner, a candidate in the OBC category who need have scored only 138 marks now needs 210 marks to qualify.

New qualification

For the SC/ST category, the new qualification cut-off will be 192.5 as against the earlier specified 130. Papers one and two have a maximum of 100 marks and paper three, 150. However, the ‘Scheme of Test’ link in the UGC’s National Educational Testing Bureau’s website also mentions that “…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 answer to a query from the University of Kerala on this issue on Wednesday, a senior UGC official reportedly explained that the final qualification cut-off arrived at by the UGC was in relation to the top scores in each paper.

This information is confidential and this was why it was not published earlier.

No change

There was no post-result alteration of any norm, the official reportedly added.

Despite repeated attempts, the Deputy Secretary of the National Educational Testing Division Surender Singh could not be reached for comment.