After sacking 600 subject experts amid NEET fiasco, NTA to rebuild new team with four-tier vetting

On Wednesday, National Testing Agency released an EoI for hiring new experts, giving details of what is expected from academics to join question-paper-setting pool.

New Delhi: A month after sacking around 600 subject experts following the NEET-UG & UGC-NET row, the National Testing Agency (NTA) is rebuilding its expert pool through a stricter four-stage vetting process that includes subject-matter assessment, background checks and a detailed confidentiality undertaking.

The overhauled empanelment process comes after the CBI chargesheet alleged that three NTA subject experts were among the primary sources of the NEET-UG paper leak and identified gaps in the agency’s handling and monitoring of experts in its confidential section.

After reconducting the NEET-UG exam following the paper leak, the NTA had to also re-conduct UGC-NET papers in English, Commerce and Sociology after an expert committee found factual, typographical, translation and language-related errors, as well as repeated questions.

Last month, the Union education ministry had said that NTA would introduce a four-tier question-paper checking system to strengthen scrutiny of papers.

The agency Wednesday released an Expression of Interest (EoI) for hiring new experts, setting out four separate filters that academics must clear before they can become part of the question-paper-setting pool. Alongside this, the NTA is hiring translation reviewers as it shifts to AI-assisted translation of examination papers.