In a major development, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has decided to make the National Eligibility Test (NET) totally objective from this June. Here with, the third and the only eloquent paper has been turned objective for the NET aspirants.

Welcoming the move, senior university professor in Lucknow University economics department, Prof Mohd Muzammil shared his experiences linked with NET evaluation. "The centralized system of valuation was a huge task for the UGC officials. To cut down their dependency on the external examiners, the objective system is a good alternative," said Prof Muzammil.

The exam is held twice a year - June and December and decides the eligibility for lectureship. Typically, the results for June should ideally be declared in October and those for December in April. But they were delayed further. The proposal for converting subjective paper into objective was put forward by the commission's NET Moderation Committee. It was given a nod by the acting UGC chairman, Prof Ved Prakash at a recent meeting which was attended by eight other members. The Committee had stated that current method of evaluating the third paper is responsible for delaying the overall results.

One of the most sought after exam, nearly seven lakh post-graduate students register for NET. There are no changes in Paper I and Paper II but Paper III earlier, was divided into four sections. The first section comprised of essay type questions that tested a candidate's ability to dwell on a theme at an optimum level. In the second section, there were analytical or evaluative questions which assessed a candidate's ability to reason and hold on argument on the given topic.

The document further quotes that the new test format, to be started from the test scheduled in June 2012, is aimed at ensuring transparency and timely declaration of results. "NET aspirants were not very happy with the old pattern as results were delayed. Being objective should serve the purpose better," said a UGC member.

Then, it was definitional or short answer type questions that tested a candidate's ability to understand and express. The last section was text based questions which looked into a candidate's critical thinking, ability to comprehend and formulate the concepts.

Meanwhile, UGC has also stressed on development of question banks to help candidates.

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