NTA to re-conduct UGC-NET for 3 subjects; 2nd exam cancellation this year after NEET leak

UGC-NET is conducted to determine the eligibility of candidates for the posts of Assistant Professor and admission to PhD programmes.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Sunday said it will re-conduct the University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) examination for three papers, after “multiple errors” were found in the exam conducted from June 22 to June 30 this year.

NTA said its committee looked into these papers after it received several complaints of 'multiple errors'. (Representative Image)

UGC-NET is conducted to determine the eligibility of candidates for the posts of Assistant Professor and admission to PhD programmes. The NTA’s decision marks the cancellation of a second major exam by the agency this year, after the May 3 NEET-UG 2026 exam was scrapped following a paper leak that sparked nationwide protests.

In a statement, the NTA said it had formed a committee to oversee several complaints of errors in the English, Commerce and Sociology question papers.

“The Committee found that the three papers had many factual, typographical, translation errors including misspelt names of prominent scholars, garbled book titles, errors in the stem wording of questions, grammatical errors, gender and number agreement errors, punctuation mistakes, and non-standard coined terms for established concepts, as well as repetition of a significant number of questions previously administered. The Committee recommended that, in the interest of holding a fair and error-free examination, these three papers should be re-conducted,” it said.

On September 9, the English paper will be held from 9am to noon, followed by the Commerce paper that will be held from 3pm to 6pm. The Sociology paper will be held on September 10 from 9am to noon, the agency said. “Further details of city, centre, and admit card details will be notified separately on the official website. No additional examination fee will be charged from the candidates of these three subjects for the re-conduct,” it added.

A person aware of the details, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Sociology question paper carried several spelling, translation and typographical errors. “At least 14 questions in the English question paper were repeated from the December 2024 examination paper. The Commerce paper faced similar issues.”

This person added: “Instead of dropping more than a dozen questions in each subject and keeping students concerned over repeated questions, the NTA decided to re-conduct the examinations of these three subjects.”

The UGC-NET examination comprises two papers: Paper I, which includes 50 questions on teaching aptitude, reasoning ability, and general awareness, and Paper II, which contains 100 subject-related multiple-choice questions.

Several candidates had complained about errors and repetitive questions in the exams for the three subjects two months ago. The Hindustan Times earlier reported that those who appeared for the Sociology paper had alleged that a 100-page PDF containing handwritten questions was circulated before the June 30 exam, with nearly 90 questions and answer options matching the actual paper.

In the English paper, the candidates alleged that more than 60 of the 150 questions were identical to the ones asked in the 2024 examination, with the sequence of the answer options also unchanged.

The re-examination has prompted concerns among candidates over having to prepare again and travel to examination centres.

“It feels like a huge pressure. It is not my fault but because of NTA and its system’s failure, why should we face these problems?” a candidate from Jhargram in West Bengal, who appeared for UGC-NET English in June, said.

He said he travelled nearly 450 km to Burdwan for the June examination and was now preparing for CTET to be held on September 6 and other examinations. The NTA’s decision has made it “difficult to refocus” on UGC-NET for September 9, he said.

Meanwhile, the agency on Sunday released the provisional answer keys for 84 of the 87 subjects. Candidates can challenge the provisional keys until August 18.