Central Universities to admit students based on Common University Entrance Test (CUET) not Class 12 marks

The University Grants Commission (UGC) announced that all 45 Central Universities will have to admit students to undergraduate courses based on the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) and not Class 12 marks. As per the commission, this rule will come into force from the upcoming academic year 2022-23. For PG admissions universities will have the flexibility to use CUET scores as of now. 

During online interaction with media persons UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar said “Admissions to all undergraduate programs in all the centrally funded universities and their affiliated colleges will be done solely on the basis of the CUET score from the 2022-23 session. For postgraduate programs, many universities are also willing to use the CUET score. We hope that all central universities will ultimately use CUET for their postgraduate admissions also.” 

The reservation policies and ordinances of the universities will remain unchanged, said the UGC chairperson 

He added, the decision will provide equal opportunities to students from the Northeast and rural India. “In addition to this, it will help parents of poor students as they will not have to pay for appearing for several entrance exams.” 

He also added, some skill-based courses will have practical components. The course for CUET will be basic concepts from the Class 12 CBSE syllabus. The guidelines for the exam will be shared with universities

The common test, CUET for admissions to undergraduate and postgraduate courses for the academic session 2022-23 will be conducted by the National Test Agency (NTA) in the first week of July, 2022. CUET will be a computerized exam and will be conducted in 13 languages: English, Hindi, Gujarati, Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.