Announcing a shift that has long been discussed and debated, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said Friday that the NEET-UG exam, the gateway to undergraduate medical admissions in the country, will be a computer-based test (CBT) from next year onwards.
The exam, which was held on May 3 for over 22 lakh candidates, was cancelled earlier this week. In a press conference, Pradhan said that compared with the system of using OMR sheets, a CBT is “a little more protected”, but cyber crime remains a challenge.
Currently, NEET-UG is a pen-and-paper exam. We explain what prompted the shift to CBT, and the challenges of doing so.
Why has this shift been announced now?
After a NEET-UG paper leak came to light in 2024, the Centre constituted a seven-member committee headed by former ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan to suggest reforms in the conduct of public exams. Pradhan said on Friday that this committee had recommended a switch to computer-based testing but “we have not been able to implement it”.
In its report submitted to the Centre in 2024, the committee noted that “there is a strong case for transition” from pen-and-paper tests to computer-based ones as the “preferred methodology”. It said that challenges in reaching out to underserved areas can be addressed, along with other requirements like providing a secure platform, network, testing infrastructure, and competent human resources.
“Given the increasingly larger number of participants in the nationwide tests, a robust CBT model with an examination in multiple shifts has now become the preferred mode of examination and a sure way forward,” the report stated.
The CBT it described is one where candidates log onto a computer terminal that is not connected to a keyboard, and answers to questions can only be marked using a mouse, with the option of being able to modify answers at any point during the exam.
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Whereas in a pen-and-paper test, students mark their answers on an OMR sheet. OMR refers to Optical Mark Recognition, an automated scanning technology that detects the presence or absence of pencil or pen marks in specific areas on specially printed paper forms. This is most commonly used in tests or exams involving multiple-choice questions.
The committee’s argument was that a pen-and-paper test “increases potential leakages” since it involves multiple third-party agencies in the logistics of printing, packing, transporting, and storing papers. The committee flagged this process of handling question papers as “one of the weakest links” in the process.
Why has NEET-UG not switched to CBT so far?
Then Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar had announced in 2018 that NEET-UG would be conducted online, twice a year from the following year onwards. This was, however, shelved after the Health Ministry objected to it. With concerns over a lack of access to computers among disadvantaged groups, normalisation, and inadequate testing infrastructure, CBT for NEET has remained on the back burner in the years since then.
NEET-UG is the largest exam that the National Testing Agency (NTA) conducts in terms of the number of candidates who appear — around 22 lakh. The exam is conducted in a single shift and on a single day.
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This is unlike an exam like the JEE (Main), for undergraduate engineering admissions and the first step towards the IITs, which the NTA conducts as a CBT in two sessions each year: in January and in April. This year, the first session had 10 shifts and the second had nine, and the exam was held on five days in each session. Around 13.05 lakh candidates appeared in January and 10.34 lakh appeared in April.
With existing testing infrastructure in the country, the NTA can conduct a computer-based test for roughly 1.5 lakh candidates in a single shift. To cover 22 lakh NEET-UG candidates, CBT infrastructure will have to be ramped up, and the exam will have to be held in more shifts than even the JEE (Main).
Several CBT centres that are available are also private ones, and security protocol will have to be ensured. The K Radhakrishnan committee had suggested that at least one testing centre be set up in each district, and pointed to the possibility of secure CBT facilities being set up at Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalaya schools, and state and central universities. It called for a network of 400-500 such testing centres “within a year or so” which will provide capacity for 2 lakh-2.5 lakh candidates to give a CBT in one session.
In a multi-session test, scores will have to be “normalised”. This is to ensure that the scoring is fair since question papers and their difficulty level might vary across sessions. The NTA has a specific process to normalise the scores, and generate a “percentile score”. It is based on the relative performance of all candidates who appeared in a single shift, and is on a scale ranging from 100 to 0.
What other exams are held in computer-based mode?
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The NTA already conducts other exams online, and in multiple shifts and sessions.
JEE (Main) was held in both online and offline mode by the CBSE till 2018. In 2019, when the NTA began conducting the exam, it switched to CBT, and was held in two sessions. The JEE (Advanced), which is conducted by the IITs, is also entirely in CBT mode.
The NTA conducts CUET-UG for undergraduate admissions in computer-based mode. This year, the exam is being conducted for over 15.68 lakh candidates in 35 shifts spanning 21 days.
The agency has also been conducting the UGC-NET exam from 2018 onwards in online mode. Last year, UGC-NET was conducted in 10 shifts for 10.20 lakh candidates.
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There have been issues with the NTA’s computer-based exams as well. CUET-UG, for instance, has faced computer glitches at some centres in the past, and UGC-NET was cancelled a day after it was held in 2024 over concerns that the paper was leaked on the darknet.
