New Delhi: Student groups staged a protest outside NTA’s office in Okhla Monday, demanding accountability from the agency after a recent circular called for re-examinations in three UGC-NET subjects. The re-test is scheduled to be conducted in three weeks.The circular states factual and grammatical errors in the question paper, as well as repetition of questions, as the reason for cancelling previously held sociology, english and commerce exams.“Was NTA sleeping when it allowed questions with grammatical errors to be used? Now it has suddenly woken up, two months after the exams were conducted,” said Sant Kumar, a PhD scholar from Jamia Millia Islamia.Protesters included online educators, who alleged that the sociology question paper had been leaked and had discrepancies, “but, the english and commerce questions were fine. Pressuring students by cancelling an exam only because previous year questions were repeated is unfair.”Protesters demand that NTA be scrapped as the nodal testing agency, re-exams be postponed and re-allocation of exam centres. Considering the toll competitive exams take on students, SFI member Sharanya Verma said, “Re-exams cannot be conducted in haste as students need time to prepare. Most of them have also returned to their homes. They should be allowed to choose whatever centre is nearby.”Around 100 protesting students tried to march into the NTA office, leading to a scuffle with police. Three police vans were brought in and over 50 students were reportedly detained to diffuse the situation. However, a senior cop said that police only removed protesters away from the gate of the complex, but no one was detained.“The fight will continue until a solution is reached,” said Aniket Madke, adding that the success of the CJP protest has encouraged them to fight for fair examinations.
