Teachers and their representative bodies have long been pointing out the disasters inherent in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 as well as specifically the scam of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the central role given to EdTech companies in the NEP.  EdTech companies are to offer courses apart from testing (we have seen how well that has gone!)  thus eventually replacing universities and schools altogether.

Here we post the statement by Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association, issued last week in the context of the collapse of India’s examination system.

Links to two relevant earlier posts on Kafila:

The National Testing Agency is a scam – shut it down now! Ayesha Kidwai

NEP 2020 – elitist and corporatized education under Hindu Rashtra: Nivedita Menon

Statement by JNUTA (6th June 2026)

The JNU Teachers’ Association and the larger community engaged in teaching and learning across the country have been consistently writing and cautioning the government that the move toward over-centralization in the Indian education system was against the federal structure of India and would result in the erosion of academic integrity in the country. The current state of the education system serves as a grim validation of these warnings, proving that the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the NEP 2020 are direct attacks on the constitutional, social, and the academic fabric of our educational system. JNUTA had time and again reiterated that for a country as geographically and socially diverse as India and where education is a Concurrent List subject, increased centralization in the hands of NTA has been a recipe for disaster. Despite evidence of zero academic competence, the NTA which was established as a registered society in 2018 under the MoE, was brazenly entrusted with the future of crores of students, replacing University’s own entrance exams and those conducted by specialized bodies like the AICTE, CSIR, UGC, ICAR, and NCHM.

The recurring catastrophe surrounding all examinations conducted by the NTA, particularly the NEET-UG and CUET, provides the ultimate evidence of the NTA’s systemic collapse which has now jeopardised the lives of millions of aspiring students and their families across the nation. The seven years of NTA have been nothing but a saga of turning public educational institutions into a marketplace of corruption, incompetence and exclusion. With several investigations in the multi-state paper-leak mafias and now even NTA-empanelled experts being arrested for leaking questions, the illusion of ‘fair and uniform’ admissions has been exposed. Forcing students to endure the trauma of re-tests due to the system’s own failure proves that the NTA is not a “premier testing organisation,” but a single point of failure that has put the future of the youth in the hands of the incompetent and corrupt.

The recent crisis that has unfolded with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) also serves as an evidence of the outcome of trading institutional expertise and knowledge for personal gains of those who are in power. Millions of students and their families are being subjected to undue stress and harassment without any fault of theirs. At a time when the MoE has put the whole system at stake, shunting of a few CBSE officials by the government is a just cosmetic exercise. It indicates that the top political leadership will continue to dodge accountability and keep protecting the interests of the powerful at any cost over the academic futures of millions of students. Entrusting private vendors like Coempt Edu, ensured through manipulation of tender specifications, the CBSE episode effectively mirrors the catastrophic patterns of the NTA that the nation has been witnessing for the last several years.

The JNUTA wants to assert unequivocally that under the current Ministry of Education, pedagogical integrity is being traded for private interests and a system of corrupt outsourcing. From the serial failures of the NTA in conducting NEET, UGC-NET, and CUET to the recent breakdown at the CBSE, it is beyond doubt now that this government’s move to force institutions after institutions to give up their autonomy and adjust to the whims and fancies of the MoE’s dictats has been to the detriment of education and disastrous for higher education.

The deep discontent and disquiet among students (and parents) are emblematic of the utter failure of the MoE and the NTA. JNUTA takes no pleasure in saying that the warnings provided by the teaching community since the advent of the NTA misadventure were not just empty critique. Their critique contained foresight into the current collapse of the examination system, which powers that be chose to ignore. We reiterate that the NEP 2020 must be immediately rolled back to protect the future of India’s students, the NTA must be immediately scrapped to save the autonomy of public universities and the Union Minister of Education, Mr Dharmendra Pradhan must immediately resign to save the integrity of education system in India.

Syed Akhtar Husain  (President, JNUTA)                                                                 Avinash Kumar (Secretary, JNUTA)