The Nilekani panel must rethink how India tests students

In appointing the Nandan Nilekani Committee to recommend reforms to National Testing Agency (NTA), and India's public examination architecture in general, GoI has acted wisely. While the immediate motivation is, of course, compromising of NEET, the issues the committee should scrutinise run far deeper.

For too long, NTA and the broader exam process have been left to tactical, even ad hoc, decision-making. NTA's emergence itself, encompassing a much wider ambit than was originally envisaged, is a case study of unintended consequences. The only explicable logic has been bureaucratic capture and power grab. Modernising the exam system in a country of so many young people, desperate for a fair chance, has been a lesser goal.

True, all of this happened under the Modi government's watch. CJP-led student protests were an important manifestation of public pushback. They have finally caused GoI to act. Yet, there are other notable factors, too. Do all exams need to be centralised in the manner and with the haste the education ministry and NTA have demonstrated? Is there a calibration of the concentration risk, where one discrepancy brings down an entire edifice and causes a full all-India exam to be cancelled?


Which exams need to be within NTA's universe, and which are better off outside it? Where is diversification of exams administratively and pedagogically advisable, and where is it not? Where can technology help? Above all, how can the exam process be designed to be less traumatic and stressful for candidates? That final point has rarely, if ever, figured in public statements of education administrators and politicians.

Given its composition, the Nilekani Committee evokes hope. An enlightened report can leave its impact well beyond NTA. It can influence other exam and testing agencies, from CBSE and school education boards to the UPSC. It would be extremely useful if the committee opened itself to a range of suggestions from not just familiar Delhi-based voices but also state governments, academic institutions of all types, and students and families, and a range of academic and non-academic stakeholders. It is critical to build the largest possible consensus. As a society, we have to get this right.

The uniformity challenge is a key one. It does not have a single clear answer. Which exams need uniformity, and which can be left to diversity is a question that must be approached with sense and sensibility, not turf impulses. Uniform design and methodology for similar types of exams is a different, but equally compelling, subject.

Why, for instance, do IIT entrance exams and NEET/medical college entrance exams follow such different organising principles? Both occur in the same country, for the same cohort, and sometimes even with common candidates.

The argument for NEET is strong and precedes the Modi government. Its roots go back to a recognition that multiple medical entrance exams, college by college, state by state, was not only a logistical nightmare for candidates but also enabled opacity. Capitation fee culture and discrepancies in seat allocation were a disquieting reality. NEET cannot resolve all challenges. But if it can make things that much better, it's worth it.

But NEET is a paper-based exam for 2.2 mn candidates, each getting exactly the same set of questions. There are no variants. It concentrates risk. IIT JEE, on the other hand, is computer-based, and allows for multiple papers and randomised questions. It considerably lowers risk.

The second template should be the norm, with logistics and IT hardware anticipated and planned for. To be fair, NEET-UG anyway proposes to shift to a computer-based model in 2027.

Deployment of AI to randomly select questions from an available universe - or thematically silo-ed available universes - of questions and ensuring an adaptive testing pathway where no two candidates get the same paper should also be fast-tracked. It serves dual purposes. In school exams, for instance, it can test candidates to their individual abilities, with scores normalised at the end. In competitive exams, it can provide a robust answer to paper leaks.

Finally, the Nilekani Committee should also be asked to reassess one of the most bizarre innovations in Indian academic history - CUET (Common University Entrance Test). A multiple-choice, NTA-run filter that selects candidates for undergrad courses that, in turn, expect students to write long-form answers is puzzling and self-defeating.

In the few years it has been in existence, CUET has undermined school education at Class 11-12 level, de-prioritised school-leaving exams, given coaching centres a bonanza, and become a strategic impediment for humanities and liberal arts scholarship in India. CUET's long-term impact is very damaging. It's not even obvious that individual colleges and universities coerced into the CUET straitjacket are better off having adopted it. It needs serious review, at least in its current form.

The author is partner, The Asia Group, and chair of its India practice