Allotted exam centre outside Manipur : Adding to the burden
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 13, 2023 -

It was with a reason that the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for both the Undergraduate and Post Graduate level was introduced under the New Education Policy and the question is, are all the States equipped well enough to hold the said examinations ?

Said to be one of the biggest examinations in the country, surpassing even the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), the introduction of CUET can be better understood as an effort of the Central Government to ensure a level playing field for all young students who have just finished their Class XII to pursue their undergraduate course and those who have graduated but are looking to go in for their post graduate studies.

A level playing field may be better understood as a means taken up to combat the atrociously high admission cut off marks set by certain universities such as Delhi University, set a sort of a method to equalise the marks of students coming from different boards and save students from the strain of appearing for multiple entrance examinations.

The Government also went one step ahead in going ahead with the CUET model in giving the choice of examination centres to the students themselves and it was with a feel good factor that many universities across the country fell in line with the call of the Centre.

Just into its second year, and not everything seems to be falling in place, especially for a place like Manipur where many students have been allocated centres outside the State.

Records available on the website say that 3687 candidates have registered for CUET (UG) while the number of candidates for the PG course is still very hazy.

Out of the 3687 UG candidates who have applied from Manipur, how many have been allocated centres in their home State ?

How many have been allotted exam centres located outside Manipur ?

How many centres are there in Manipur to hold the said examination ?

Couldn’t the number of examination centres here be increased so that all the candidates from Manipur can be accommodated here ?

How many candidates from Manipur have registered for the said examination, that is for both the UG and PG courses ?

Shouldn’t all these points have been made public via a media briefing earlier ?

An uncomfortable thought it is to even think that Manipur can take such things so casually. Why not demonstrate some seriousness ?

The ongoing ethnic clash has only made things worse.

But this is all the more reason why extra efforts should have been put into place to ensure that students from Manipur are allotted centres in the State itself. This should be self explanatory.

For a student allotted a centre at say Kohima, it would mean taking a flight to Guwahati or Dimapur and then take the road all the way to the capital of Nagaland.

This is just an example to demonstrate the acute inconveniences parents and elders of the family face just so that their children can appear for CUET.

The example just cited now was also the same in 2022 when some students from Manipur were allotted examination centres outside the State in places such as Guwahati, Dimapur or Jorhat.

Indications that Manipur had not taken up the needed steps to organise an examination on the scale of the CUET or that it was not just ready ?

If this is the case then the matter should have been brought to the notice of the National Testing Agency.

A shabby preparation just so that Manipur can feature on the CUET map will be reducing the whole exercise of conducting a test as important as deciding the further studies of the young students to something of a sham.

Increase the number of examination centres here. With a little more thought and efforts this should not be asking for too much, for if places like Guwahati, Jorhat can absorb students from here, as in 2022, then there should be no reason why adequate steps cannot be taken up here.

Let Manipur see a better conduct of CUET in 2024.