वाह NTA वाह! NEET विवाद के बाद बहुत सुधार किया, पर क्या किया? वो पता नहीं… RTI ने खोल दी पोल – neet reforms nta rti report radhakrishnan committee recommendations status edmm
A classic example of how the balloon of claims deflates when it hits the needle of reality is currently being seen in the examination system of the country. When there was an outcry in the entire country after the NEET mega-scam and paper leak, the government appointed K.K. Radhakrishnan Committee was formed. The government, the ministers and the chairman of the committee himself repeatedly boasted that 70 to 75 percent of the reforms have been implemented.
But now, the reply that has come under the Right to Information (RTI) has exposed all these claims. This explosive revelation has come from RTI that NTA The NDA itself does not have any written or consolidated record as to which recommendations of the committee have been implemented on the ground and which are still buried in the files! Let us understand…
Big things about RTI: Reality blows away the claims
The main points revealed in this RTI reply are not only shocking, but also raise a big question mark on the transparency of the country’s examination system:
Famine Consolidated Report: It is clear from RTI that neat NTA does not have any final or consolidated report regarding the implementation of the reforms.
Point-wise status missing: Former ISRO Chairman K. NTA completely failed to give the point-wise status of which action was taken on which of the 101 recommendations of the Radhakrishnan Panel.
Silence on paper security: NTA did not share any specific update on what new concrete arrangements were made regarding the security of question papers and their transportation.
Claims vs. Reality: On one hand, the government and NTA claim that 70 to 75% of the recommendations have been implemented, but on the other hand, there is no documentary evidence to prove this claim.
No public tracker: There is no public tracker or dashboard available to the general public, students or media to track which reforms have been completed and which are still pending.
NTA is ’empty handed’ even after one and a half years
Let’s take the story back a bit. After the NEET controversy, K. To change the entire structure of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and make radical reforms in it. Radhakrishnan Committee had submitted its 101 recommendations. It has been about one and a half years since this happened.
But after such a long time, when ‘India Today’ through RTI wanted to know from NTA what is the status of these recommendations, the answer given by the agency is surprising. NTA directly admitted that it did not have any final or consolidated record available with it to show which of the panel’s recommendations had been fully implemented.
This answer is also a big shock because in recent times senior government officials, standing committees of Parliament and myself. Radhakrishnan had publicly stated that most of the recommendations had been implemented.
How did NTA ignore these RTI questions?
What are the point-wise details of implementing the committee’s recommendations?
Which reforms are still pending?
What steps have been taken to keep the question papers safe?
What progress has been made regarding Computer Based (CBT) examinations?
What is the final timeline to complete all these reforms?
Read carefully the written argument given by NTA in response to these direct questions.
NTA said that K. The recommendations of the Radhakrishnan Committee are currently in various stages of examination and implementation. This process is ongoing and involves coordination between multiple stakeholders, technical agencies and examination authorities. Till date, no final and consolidated point-wise status report indicating the status of completion of each recommendation has been prepared. In view of this, the information sought is not available in the form sought. Therefore, this information cannot be given under the RTI Act, 2005.
Questions raised from RTI response
This RTI reply of NTA clearly indicates that even though some work is going on at the backend, till date the agency has not prepared a single official document that can clarify which recommendations have been completed, which ones are pending and when will the remaining reforms be completed.
Not only this, NTA remained silent on what security measures were taken to plug the loopholes in the transportation, storage and maintenance of question papers. Also, no specific answer was given as to how much progress has been made on the recommendations of conducting the examination from pen-and-paper mode to computer-based or hybrid mode.
The interesting thing is that this RTI reply of NTA is completely contrary to all the claims which have been made in front of the country in the last few days. Just understand the chronology of these claims-
Affidavit in Supreme Court of May 29: Former ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan himself had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying that most of the 101 recommendations of his high level committee have either been implemented or work on them is going on at a fast pace. According to this affidavit, systems like biometric authentication, multi-layer frisking, expanding the scope of CCTV surveillance, mobile jammers, state level coordination committees and data analytics tools to detect suspicious patterns have already been implemented. The affidavit also said that it has been recommended to gradually shift NEET from pen-paper mode to computer-based test and long-term reforms are being implemented in phases.
Parliamentary committee meeting of May 21: Just before this, on May 21, a parliamentary standing committee was informed that about 75 percent of the recommendations had already been implemented.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan himself had publicly claimed that about 70 percent of the recommendations have been implemented. In another statement, he had admitted that there was a breach in the command chain, but the government had fully followed the recommendations of the Radhakrishnan Committee.
The missing link: where is the authentic report?
The biggest ‘missing link’ amidst all these statements, claims and affidavits is an authentic status report. The RTI response screams that NTA does not have any final, point-wise status report document that can be shared with the public.
The result is that as of today, there is no public official document available from NTA through which any student or parent of the country can see what work has been done on which recommendation, what was the reason for the delay and what is the deadline for the remaining work.
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