All central varsities must adopt CUET for UG admissions: UGC to AMU, Jamia

The University Grants Commission has written to Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia, reiterating that all central universities have to mandatorily adopt the Common University Entrance Test for admission to undergraduate programmes.

"UGC (University Grants Commission) has asked all the central universities to use CUET (Common University Entrance Test) scores for admissions to all the courses. However, this has been observed that Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has opted to participate in CUET-2023 for a limited number of programmes/courses, as was done last year.

"Please note that all the central universities, including AMU, are required to participate for all UG programmes in CUET 2023 to provide equal opportunities to aspiring candidates, which is in the student's best interests," the UGC said in the letter.

The letter also stated that CUET provides a common platform and equal opportunities to candidates across the country, especially those from the northeast, rural and other remote areas, and helps to establish better connections with the universities.

"A single examination enables the candidates to cover a broad outreach and be part of the admission process to various central and participating universities," the letter added.

Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) has no plans to implement CUET for admissions across all its undergraduate and postgraduate courses and will stick to its own entrance test to "ensure timely admissions" for the upcoming academic session, the vice-chancellor said earlier this week.

The UGC introduced CUET last year for admission to undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

JMI, however, did not adopt the CUET for all its undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

While JMI opted for CUET for admission to 10 undergraduate programmes last year, the number is likely to rise this year.

The AMU has also announced that it would opt for CUET for limited courses.

According to UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar, CUET has been introduced as a level playing ground for students in undergraduate course admissions.

He said, "For the 2023 academic session, already about 120 universities have signed up. UGC also has written to all the Central Universities that their UG course admissions should be based on only the CUET score. Last year, UGC permitted a couple of central universities to use CUET scores in a limited number of UG courses since CUET was introduced for the first time in 2022.

"However, from the 2023 academic session onwards, all the central universities must use CUET scores in all the UG course admissions. Even if there are reservations for a particular category of students, such as local students in a central university, they should still use CUET scores only for all categories.