New Delhi/Noida: The Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admission to undergraduate courses was postponed across centers on Saturday after a technical glitch, the National Testing Agency (NTA) said as it announced a re-test of over 3,700 candidates, the bulk of whom appear to be from a single center in Noida.
NTA attributed the delay to an error in the systems managed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which is conducting the test.
Saturday’s chaos sparked new anxiety among thousands of students preparing for exams that will determine their admission to university courses, the latest in a series of disturbances that have hampered standardized exams in India.
The agency said the delay affected more than 73,100 students at 533 exam centers spanning 306 cities, as it fends off criticism over another of its standardized tests. The tests, for 12 subjects in the first shift, were due to start at 9am, but were delayed by two hours, with candidates sitting inside exam rooms the whole time, with little clarity.
“69,341 candidates (about 95%) completed their examinations at their centres,” NTA said. But she added, “3,765 candidates could not wait for the exam to resume and left their exam centers, without appearing for the exam.”
When asked, a senior NTA official denied the allegations that the students were asked to leave and said they were “not told that the exam was cancelled”.
The official, who requested to remain anonymous, said: “No one in any center announced the cancellation of the exam, and it appears that all the students who were scheduled to take the exam in that center left without writing the exam.”
“These 3,765 candidates belong to all 533 examination centers across the country where the examination was conducted including the 64 Noida examination centre,” NTA said in its statement announcing the re-examination.
The agency said it would reschedule the exam for these students as a “one-time measure”, adding that it had ordered TCS-iON, a unit of TCS, to analyze the reasons for the delay and submit a report.
However, at the Noida Sector 64 center pointed out by NTA, no student seemed to have written the exam in the first period, which was supposed to start at 9 am, parents and students said. Officials said the center has the capacity to accommodate at least 4,000 students.
HT spoke to dozens of students from the centre, who confirmed that they had registered their biometrics and waited in the exam rooms for hours, before officials said the papers had been “postponed” and asked them to leave.
“We entered the exam hall and had to wait for four hours,” said Sayanshika (who goes by one name), who was scheduled to take an English test. “Then we were told that the exam had been postponed.”
A parent at the center confirmed this story.
Navita, who refused to reveal her surname, said: “My child’s exam was in the morning, and it didn’t happen. This is a big exam. They studied all night, then woke up at five in the morning. They are playing with the future of the children here.”
CUET-UG, for admission to undergraduate programs in more than 300 universities, is conducted in two terms. Under the regular schedule, candidates for the morning shift must complete their registration by 8:30 a.m. and testing begins at 9 a.m.
Saturday’s chaos is the latest setback for the NTA, and the latest in a series of blunders in group exams.
The NTA on May 12 canceled the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) and ordered a rerun of the mass examination after central agencies confirmed that the question paper had been leaked, throwing the future of hundreds of thousands of students into doubt and creating chaos in university admission courses. This leak sparked a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation, a series of arrests and investigations into the preparation of the papers. The chaos also prompted the Supreme Court to intervene and censure the testing agency.
Subsequently, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) faced heavy criticism over its controversial screen marking system, with allegations emerging that the agency had taken shortcuts in the tender process and that it had asked school principals to defend the process using a distributed ‘toolkit’.
Students at centers in Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Lucknow and other cities described confusion, long waits and inadequate communication.
Aditi Azad, an 18-year-old who has been featured in the English and Fine Arts newspapers at Mathura Road Centre, said the candidates waited for hours after their seats were taken.
“My paper was scheduled from 9 am to 11 am, but it started only at 11:30 am. Initially, the invigilators asked us to be calm and said the issue would be resolved within 10 to 15 minutes. But as time passed, it became clear that they themselves had little idea what was causing the delay,” she said.
Saurabh Singh, a student who appeared for the first shift in Gurugram, said: “Students waiting for exams is frustrating and exhausting. It lowers our morale. If a student is late, he will be banned from entering the hall, but what about mistakes on the part of the authorities.”
Abhishek Kumar, who appeared for the exam in Faridabad, said, “I was here at 7.45 am to take the exam but had to wait till 11 am. The energy level is getting low. We are working hard to crack these exams and this is unfair.”
They were allowed to enter the center at 9 am, said Rudaksh Gupta, a candidate at Tirumala Education Academy in Lucknow.
“When we entered the exam centre, we were informed that the servers were not working. This resulted in a wait of about two-and-a-half hours,” Gupta said.
At the Noida centre, students claimed that they were not allowed to leave their rooms for hours.
“The air conditioners weren’t working, there was no drinking water, and we couldn’t communicate with our parents,” Sayanshika said.
In a statement, K. Krithivasan, CEO and Managing Director, TCS, said a “brief technical issue” caused a delay of about two hours.
The company said in a statement: “The problem was immediately identified and resolved by our technical teams and the examination has since resumed without any impact on the sanctity of the test. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
