The National Testing Agency (NTA) has announced the re-examination for the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) in English, Commerce, and Sociology papers. This decision follows an expert committee’s findings of significant factual, typographical, and translation errors in the original question papers conducted between June 22 and June 30.
Information was available with The Chenab Times indicating that the NTA received numerous complaints regarding the question papers for these three subjects. A specially constituted committee reviewed these complaints and identified widespread issues. These included misspelled names of notable scholars, garbled book titles, errors in question formulation, grammatical inaccuracies, mistakes in gender and number agreement, punctuation errors, the use of non-standard terminology for established academic concepts, and the unfortunate repetition of questions from previous examinations.
The expert committee concluded that the extent of these defects rendered the papers unfair and recommended a re-conduction to ensure an equitable and accurate examination process. The NTA acknowledged that the identified errors were so substantial that simply dropping problematic questions after the challenge period would not suffice.
The re-examinations are scheduled for September 9 and 10. The English paper will be held on September 9 from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM. The Commerce paper is slated for the same day, from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Subsequently, the Sociology paper will be conducted on September 10, from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM.
The NTA has stated that further details concerning the examination cities, specific centres, and the issuance of admit cards will be communicated through its official website in due course. Candidates appearing for these re-conducted examinations will not be required to pay any additional fee.
For the remaining 84 subjects, for which the answer key challenge process has already been completed, the NTA will proceed with the declaration of results as per the established schedule. The allocation of Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) seats and the issuance of e-certificates for Assistant Professor eligibility and PhD admissions in these subjects will not be affected by the re-scheduling of the three papers.
The agency further clarified that the number of candidates who will be deemed eligible for Assistant Professor positions will be equivalent to six percent of the total number of candidates who appeared in the June 2026 examination or the re-test, whichever figure is higher. This ensures that the overall eligibility pool remains consistent.
Regarding the three subjects undergoing re-examination, the allocation of JRF, eligibility for Assistant Professor positions, and eligibility for PhD program admissions will be conducted in strict adherence to the guidelines outlined in the Information Bulletin. The NTA has assured that the numbers already allocated for each subject will not be reduced following the re-test.
Candidates are strongly advised by the NTA to rely solely on the official NTA websites and official communications for any further updates or announcements related to the examinations.
The Chenab Times News Desk