Change in NET criteria effected by UGC
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has written to Union Human Resource Minister Kapil Sibal asking him to bring to the notice of the University Grants Commission (UGC) the grievances of students who had written the National Eligibility Test (NET) for lectureship in colleges in the country.
The letter, dated October 16, noted that the students had complained to Mr. Chandy that the UGC changed the criteria for qualifying in this examination after the results of the same were declared.
In their memorandum, the candidates aggrieved by the UGC’s action, had pointed out that the Commission, in a post-result alteration of the qualifying criteria, mandated that candidates in the general category scored an aggregate of 65 per cent in all three of the NET’s papers to become eligible for lectureship. The corresponding figure for the OBC category was 60 per cent and that of the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe category 55 per cent.
The petition said, ‘such an arbitrary alteration of criteria is unprecedented and even illegal.’
This move of the UGC had also violated the norm that the rules of a game should not be altered once the game started; something stressed by the Supreme Court also, the petition said.
The explanation from the UGC that the criteria were altered because a large number of students passed the NET, was not valid. The NET was an eligibility test and only the minimum criteria for pass needed be specified, it said. The petitioners had urged the UGC to revise the NET results on the basis of the pass criteria fixed before the conduct of the examinations and to publish the same
Sources: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/chandy-w...
