Kumar also pointed out that students from state boards will not be at a disadvantage in the undergraduate admission process. The UGC chairman clarified that the CUET will neither give a push to ‘coaching culture’ nor will it make the board exams irrelevant. 

The UGC chairman had last week announced that CUET scores, and not Class 12 scores, will be mandatory for admission to 45 central universities and the central universities can fix their minimum eligibility criteria.

Kumar’s statements comes after the implementation of CUET attracted negative comments from academicians and experts who pointed out that this would only fair to students who can afford getting coached for the same. 

On universities adhering to the CUET scores, the UGC chairman said that the common test scores will not be limited to admissions in Central Universities only as several prominent private institutions have indicated that they would like to come on board for using the scores from the common entrance exam for undergraduate admissions.

“To begin with CUET will be conducted once this year but NTA will consider conducting the exam at least twice a year from next session. The entrance exam will not just be limited to Central Universities but also private varsities. Several prominent private universities have indicated that they would like to come on board and admit students through CUET,” he said.

On the type of examination syllabus CUET will entail, Jagadesh Kumar said, “The exam will simply not require any coaching so there is no question of it giving push to a coaching culture. The exam will be completely based on class 12 syllabus. Lot of students are getting concerned whether the exam will also have questions from class 11 syllabus. The answer is a clear no”.