NEW DELHI: All central universities will have to admit students to undergraduate courses on the basis of the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) and not the Class 12 marks, the University Grants Commission (UGC) said on Monday. This rule will come into force from the upcoming academic year (2022-23).

The common test, CUET, for admissions to undergraduate and postgraduate courses will be conducted in the first week of July by the National Test Agency (NTA).

UGC Chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar said it will be mandatory for the 45 central universities to adopt CUET for admission to their undergraduate courses. However, for postgraduate admissions, universities will have flexibility to use the CUET score as of now.

“Admissions to all undergraduate programmes in all the centrally funded universities and their affiliated colleges will be done solely on the basis of the CUET score from the 2022-23 session. For postgraduate programmes, many universities are also willing to use the CUET score. We hope that all central universities will ultimately use CUET for their postgraduate admissions also,” he said.

Some universities, including Delhi University, have already announced that they will only admit students to undergraduate courses on the basis of their CUET score.

Other higher education institutions, including private, state or deemed-to-be universities, can use CUET scores for their undergraduate and postgraduate admissions. The universities will be allowed to set up their individual minimum eligibility criteria in terms of class 12 marks for undergraduate admissions.

CUET, a computerised exam, will be conducted in 13 languages: English, Hindi, Gujarati, Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

Kumar emphasised that CUET will not affect the admission policies of the central universities.

“For instance, if any university reserves a certain percentage for local students or internal students, it will continue to do that. The only difference is that these students will also have to come through CUET like students to be admitted on general seats. The reservation policies and ordinances of the universities will remain unchanged,” the UGC chairperson said.

Among such universities are, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) that reserves 50% seats for their internal candidates and Jamia Millia Islamia where 50% seats are reserved for minority students.

Meanwhile, UGC has exempted international students from CUET. “International students will continue to be admitted as per the existing practice the universities have on supernumerary basis,” Kumar said.

For skill-based courses having major practical components, including music, painting, sculpture and theatre, universities will be allowed to conduct practical exams or interviews along with CUET. “The universities can assign certain weightage to practical exams and interview for such courses,” he said. Besides, there will not be any centralised counselling for undergraduate admissions and universities will be allowed to conduct their own counselling, if needed.

Explaining the structure of the exam, Kumar said that the three-and-a-half hour-long exam will be conducted in two phases, and the paper will be based on class 12 NCERT syllabus. Candidates will be given multiple choices in every section to offer greater flexibility.

In the first phase of the exam, the candidates will appear in a language exam for which a vast choice will be given to them. With that, they will also have to appear in two domain specific exams along with a general test. In the second phase, the candidates can appear in four more domain subjects, if they want, along with a language subject.

“Candidates can decide the number of domain subjects they want to attempt during the exam. They can appear for up to six domain subjects out of the basket of 27 subjects such as accountancy, biology, business studies, chemistry, geography history, economics, mathematics, among others,” Kumar said.

NTA will soon release the detailed guidelines and UGC will issue a public notice regarding CUET on Tuesday.