Student’s ‘second choice’ made him/her placed in Port Blair: Official
Shillong, May 13: Following prompt intervention the state government, leading to identification of additional examination centres, the National Testing Agency (NTA) is all set to re-allot centres for all CUET-UG candidates of Meghalaya within the state.
Informing this on Tuesday, commissioner & secretary (education) Vijay Kumar Mantri said, “The state government has promptly intervened, and with the support of NTA, successfully identified additional examination centres for the conduct of Common University Entrance Test (CUET-UG) 2025 within Meghalaya.”
He also said the NTA is confident that all candidates having exams scheduled after May 16 and allocated centres outside Meghalaya, will be re-allotted centres within the state, subject to availability and completion of a validation process.
In this regard, the Education department will confirm by Wednesday or day after, the official said.
Meanwhile, he clarified that the state government had no role in the individual allotment of examination centres and that it is entirely managed by NTA using an automated software system.
“The system allocates centres based on the preferences submitted by each candidate,” he said.
“Candidates are required to indicate four preferred locations, and the system assigns a centre strictly from among these choices. Therefore, if a student has been allotted a centre outside Meghalaya, it is because they had selected that location as one of their preferences,” he clarified.
This system also includes even cases of students allotted centres as far as Port Blair, he said indicating that the students might have erroneously made those choices.
Altogether 12,685 students from Meghalaya have registered for CUET-UG and only 7,742 have been allotted centres within Meghalaya due to lack of well-equipped examination centres.
Among the 4,943 candidates allotted centres outside Meghalaya, 4,654 have been allotted seats in Assam, leaving 289 candidates outside both Meghalaya and Assam.
Among them, 93 candidates have been assigned centres outside the North East region, including the one allotted in Port Blair, based on the candidate’s second choice, Mantri said.
There are currently two City Options in Meghalaya and five City Options in Assam. “Since the system guarantees allocation from among the four preferred choices provided by each student, the students could have selected one of these 7 choices to avoid going out of the region,” he said.
On the delayed communication of the shortage of centres, the official said the NTA did not communicate with the state government in advance about any shortage of examination centres in the state.
“The matter only came to light at the last moment when several students were allotted centres outside Meghalaya,” he said.
However, he said, as soon as the issue was brought to the attention of the state government, over 800 additional computer nodes were swiftly identified across various institutions. The list of these potential venues has been shared with the NTA.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), engaged by NTA for vetting and validating computer-based test centres, is currently conducting inspection of the proposed centres.
“This is a necessary process that takes a few days,” Mantri said.
Meanwhile, he acknowledged the support of various schools and colleges across Meghalaya in offering their computer labs for conducting NTA exams and urged others with the facilities to come forward.
“This must be understood that extending support to NTA for having more exam centres will greatly help the students of Meghalaya,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said, the state government remains committed to ensuring that every student from Meghalaya gets a fair and accessible opportunity to appear for national-level exams like CUET.
Regular communication is being maintained with NTA, and further updates will be shared with the public as and when received, he added.
