New Delhi, Oct 11: The Congress on Sunday said a parliamentary standing committee report has catalogued the “grave incompetence and malpractice” in the NTA and the Ministry of Education, and hoped that the Modi government “sheds its arrogance for the limited time it has remaining” and takes the report seriously.
The Congress also said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education’s report, titled “Reforms and Strengthening of the National Testing Agency (NTA)”, has highlighted that the Ministry of Education made the “blatantly false” claim to the panel “that no paper leak” occurred in an exam conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) since its formation in 2017.
In a statement, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education under the chairmanship of Rajya Sabha MP Mukul Wasnik “catalogues the grave incompetence and malpractice in the NTA and the Ministry of Education”.
Sharing the statement on X, Ramesh said, “GyaneshGate is dominating the news now but three months ago it was NTAgate that had launched the youth protest movement. Here is our statement on the NTA based on the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education that has just been submitted to the Chairman, Rajya Sabha.” Listing the six main highlights from the report, Ramesh said the Ministry of Education made the “blatantly false and audacious claim” to the parliamentary committee “that no paper leak has occurred in an exam conducted by the NTA since its formation in 2017 till 2025.” “There have been 9 paper leaks and irregularities in NTA-conducted exams that we know of. What hope is there for a fair investigation or accountability when the Ministry even refuses to acknowledge what went wrong in the first place?” the Congress leader said.
“The NTA is registered as a Society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. It is not a statutory body that has been created by an Act of Parliament. It therefore functions with limited accountability and parliamentary oversight,” he said.
Ramesh said the panel report highlighted that the NTA has been designed as a “khokhla (empty) body” that hands over all key responsibilities to private contractors.
It highlighted that the NTA only has 39 sanctioned positions, which means that it must rely on private contractors to conduct examinations, he said.
“Of the 39 sanctioned posts, only 23 officers are currently in position — a vacancy of 41%. This is despite the emphasis of the K Radhakrishnan Committee on building the NTA’s staff strength,” Ramesh said, citing the report.
All the 39 permanent posts that exist in the NTA are filled through a deputation mode, with officers serving only a 2-3 year tenure, he said, adding that this prevents the development of institutional expertise and know-how. (PTI)