The National Testing Agency cancelled three UGC-NET exam papers after candidates reported extensive typographical errors and duplicated questions [1].
The decision impacts thousands of aspirants nationwide who rely on these certifications for academic eligibility. The move highlights ongoing concerns regarding the quality control of high-stakes national examinations in India.
The cancelled subjects include Sociology, English, and Commerce [1]. The original examinations were held on June 30, 2026 [4], with the cancellation announced in early July [2].
Candidates reported severe inaccuracies in the Sociology paper. Some aspirants alleged that 50% of the paper contained spelling errors [2]. Specifically, the names of key sociologists were misspelled—"Ritzer" was printed as "Putzer" and "Parsons" appeared as "Parsow" [3, 5].
"Seeing Ritzer printed as Putzer made me lose confidence in the paper's validity," said Priya Sharma, a sociology aspirant [3].
The English paper faced similar scrutiny due to a lack of original content. Rahul Verma, a candidate, said 67 out of 150 questions [6, 7] were identical to the 2024 paper [5].
An NTA spokesperson said typographical errors are not unusual, but the agency takes candidates' concerns seriously and is reviewing the papers [2]. Despite the spokesperson's phrasing, the agency deemed the papers compromised and withdrew them [1].
The NTA is now tasked with rescheduling the tests to ensure a fair evaluation process for the affected candidates. This follows a pattern of candidate-led flags regarding grammatical errors, and spelling mistakes across multiple subjects [3].
“"67 out of 150 English questions were identical to the 2024 paper."”
The cancellation of these papers suggests a systemic failure in the vetting process for national-level academic tests. When nearly half of a specialized paper contains errors or a significant portion of questions are recycled from previous years, it undermines the perceived meritocracy of the qualification process and increases the administrative burden of rescheduling nationwide exams.
