After receiving a positive response for undergraduate admissions, the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) could now also be expanded to postgraduate admissions. While announcing CUET, the UGC Chairperson M Jagdeesh Kumar had earlier said that the common entrance exam will eventually be expanded too postgraduate courses too, however, this could be done as early as the next academic session.

According to reports, the UGC is in discussions to expand the CUET ambit and include postgraduate courses under the same from the coming academic year. The exact dates, however, have not been finalized. Once the decision is made, it would be announced by the UGC.

Currently, different universities have different admission criteria for postgraduate admissions. Once finalized, CUETcould uniform the postgraduate admission process across universities. Like undergraduate admissions, for postgraduate too, the UGC is expected to go beyond central universities and private colleges too will be allowed to use CUET as one of the ways to allow admissions.

Among changes expected in CUET, the UGC is considering holding the exam twice next year for the undergraduate courses to allow students to score better.

Having a centralized exam is not favored by all, especially in the Southern states. Even though the number of applications has been high with over 1 lakh students applying within a week for CUET for UG admissions, most of the applications have been concentrated in Northern states.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister ML Stalin in a letter to Prime Minister had said that centralized exams will be disadvantageous for state boards. “More than 80 per cent of total student population us from state boards, hence NCERT-based entrance exam would place these deserving majority in a disadvantageous position in securing admission in central universities.”

He added that, “NEET, CUET will also be against rural, poor, and socially-marginalied students from state board, only favour further mushrooming coaching centres in the domain of admissions in humanities also.

Read all the Latest News , Breaking News and IPL 2022 Live Updates here.