No plan to merge NEET, JEE with CUET: Centre

New Delhi, Sep 07: Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan on Wednesday clarified that there are no plans to merge engineering entrance exam JEE and medical entrance exam NEET with the Common University Entrance Test.

University Grants Commission Chairman Jagadesh Kumar had last month said in future JEE and NEET will be merged with the CUET.

"Merger of NEET, JEE and CUET is currently a concept, a thought and the government has not yet decided upon it in principle," Pradhan said while interacting with students, mostly hailing from his home state Odisha, of Allen Career Institute in here during his one day visit to the city.

There is no proposal of merging NEET, JEE with CUET and it will take at least two years to decide upon the concept of a merger of the three exams and to conduct a combined test, Pradhan said while asking the students not to be afraid.

Earlier reports claimed that the government is planning to merge NEET, JEE and CUET exams.

Speaking to Times of India, UGC Chairman Jagdish Kumar said , "It is proposed that all these entrance examinations be combined together. So that our students do not have to appear in multiple entrance examinations based on the same knowledge."

"Students will have to give only one entrance test but they will get admission opportunities in different fields," he said.

CUET

With 14.9 lakh registrations, the CUET is now the second-biggest entrance exam in the country, surpassing the JEE-Main's average registration of nine lakh. Apart from central universities, 12 state universities, 11 deemed universities, and 19 private universities have applied to participate in the first edition of CUET-UG for admissions in the academic session 2022-23.

JEE and NEET

This year, about 43 lakh students have appeared in the three main entrance examinations - Joint Entrance Test (main), National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Graduation (medical entrance), and CUET-UG.