Now National Testing Agency (NTA) for Admission Test in India

National Testing Agency (NTA) has been established as a premier, specialist, autonomous and self-sustained testing organization to conduct entrance examinations for admission / fellowship in higher educational institutions. To assess competence of candidates for admissions and recruitment has always been a challenge in terms of matching with research based international standards, efficiency, transparency and error free delivery.

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Vision NTA |The right candidates joining best institutions will give India her demographic dividend.

Mission |To improve equity and quality in education by administering research based valid, reliable, efficient, transparent, fair and international level assessments. The best subject matter experts, psychometricians and IT delivery and security professionals will ensure that the current gaps in existing assessment systems are properly identified and bridged.

Core Values |NTA will create a system which will promote teaching (by teachers), learning (by students) and assessment (by parents and institutions).NTA strongly believes in quality, efficiency, effectiveness, equity and security of assessments. To practice these values, NTA will constantly engage with its stakeholders, viz. students, parents, teachers, experts and partner institutions.

Objectives

  • To conduct efficient, transparent and international standards tests in order to assess the competency of candidates for admission, and recruitment purposes.
  • To undertake research on educational, professional and testing systems to identify gaps in the knowledge systems and take steps for bridging them.
  • To identify experts and institutions in setting examination questions.
  • To produce and disseminate information and research on education and professional development standards.

Functions

  • To identify partner institutions with adequate infrastructure from the existing schools and higher education institutions which would facilitate conduct of online examinations without adversely impacting their academic routine.
  • To create a question bank for all subjects using the modern techniques
  • To establish a strong R&D culture as well as a pool of experts in different aspects of testing
  • To help individual colleges and universities in the field of testing and to provide training and advisory services to the institutions in India. To provide quality testing services to the academic institutions in India.
  • To develop a state of the art culture of testing in India by using domestic and international expertise. To collaborate with international organizations like ETS to achieve the same.
  • To undertake any other examination that is entrusted to it by the Ministries/Departments of Government of India/State Governments.
  • To undertake the reforms and training of school boards as well as other bodies where the testing standards should be comparable with the entrance examinations.

Governing Body |The administration of the NTA has been entrusted to the Governing Body, the first members of which are as under:

SI NO Name Designation Occupation
01 Shri R. Subrahmanyam Chairman Secretary, Department of Higher Education, MHRD
02 Dr. S.S. Sandhu Member Additional Secretary (Technical Education), Department of Higher Education, MHRD
03 Ms. Darshana Momaya Dabral Member Joint Secretary & Financial Adviser, Department of Higher Education, MHRD
04 Ms. Anita Karwal Member Chairperson, Central Board of Secondary Education
05 Sh. Vineet Joshi Member Secretary Director General, National Testing Agency (NTA)
06 Dr. Abhay Karandikar Member Director, IIT Kanpur
07 Shri Anil Kumar Member Director (Finance), Department of Higher Education, MHRD
08 Shri Prashant Agarwal Member Director (IITs), Department of Higher Education, MHRD

Team NTA |NTA will have a team of education administrators, experts, researchers and assessment developers who believe that scientifically designed and properly delivered assessments can improve teaching learning processes in Indian class rooms. Students coming out of these processes will immensely contribute to the wellbeing of our country. These assessments will also improve equity and will ensure that merit and not the means prevail in selections.

Success of all works of NTA shall be evaluated on the basis of their being able to achieve the above purpose. NTA will emphasize on updating its practices by constant innovation in assessment. The organization will give major emphasis to research in evaluation and use that research to update its assessment practices.

Core team members

  • Test Item Writers
  • Researchers and Psychometricians
  • Education Specialists

a) Researchers and Psychometricians

NTA has six operational verticals pertaining to various examinations. Every vertical will employ about 6 researchers including internationally known experts of psychometric and statistics.

The group of researchers will be responsible for the following-

  • Research and analysis of data to support the examinations they are entrusted with
  • Idea for future assessment practices
  • Establish good assessment practices and influence policy at the national level

The group of psychometricians and statisticians will be responsible for the following-

  • Reliability of the test in different versions to be used
  • Validity of the test by showing that the test measures the knowledge or skills that it is intended to measure
  • Fairness of the test by ensuring that no group of students is either advantaged or disadvantaged due to medium of examination or content of the questions
  • Equating multiple tests that will be done during a year so that these tests become comparable

NTA will set professional standards for assessments in the country, research on education and professional development.

Since India is a hugely diverse country, NTA will effectively liaise with various state governments, universities, state education boards, UGC, AIU, NCTE, NCERT, CBSE, CISCE, NIOS etc. to understand student’s abilities and higher education institution’s requirements.

b) Test Item Writers

NTA will create a pool of highly professional subject matter experts who will be trained by the psychometricians and statisticians. These subject matter experts will write items for NTA and using software/ artificial intelligence, the NTA will create tests. Initially, the tests of NTA will come under the following categories:

Entrance Examinations

  • JEE (Main)
  • NEET – UG
  • CMAT
  • GPAT

Assessments for fellowship

  • UGC – NET

Targeted Assessments |In future, NTA will also undertake other tests to measure specific population’s content, knowledge and skills.

Education Policy Specialists |NTA will have a huge repository of data of student performance, with various other demographic parameters across subject areas. NTA will analyse this data to inform the policymakers about the corrective measures required for improving teaching and learning.

NTA will, interalia, report on-

  • in-depth analysis of educational achievement across States and achievement gap
  • teacher quality and certification
  • Time series comparison of performance across states
  • Inputs on student and teacher training needs
  • educational reform

NEET Related Details

The National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) UG will be conducted by the NTA from 2019 onwards. This Test was being conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) till 2018. NEET (UG) is applicable for admission to MBBS/BDS Courses in India in Medical/Dental Colleges run with the approval of Medical Council of India/Dental Council of India under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India except for the institutions established through an Act of Parliament i.e. AIIMS and JIPMER Puducherry.

The responsibility of the NTA will limited to the conduct of the entrance examination, declaration of result and providing All India Rank to the Directorate General Health Services, Government of India for the conduct of counseling for 15% All India Quota Seats and for supplying the result to state/other Counseling Authorities.

More details will be updated soon…

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