UGC-NET Re-exam: 'NTA Has Given Us 23 Days. Preparing Alongside a PhD is a Lot'

'I have just 23 days to prepare for UGC-NET again. Why can't the NTA get an exam right the first time?'

The NTA has announced a re-examination for the June 2026 UGC-NET papers in English, Commerce, and Sociology, with the tests scheduled for 9-10 September.

(Illustration generated using AI created by Kamran Akhter/The Quint.)

When the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced that UGC-NET examinations for English, Commerce, and Sociology held in June 2026 will be scrapped, and they will now take place in the second week of September, my first reaction was that of panic. Making the announcement on 16 August, the NTA has given 23 days to students like me to prepare, once again, for a national-level examination.

I am a PhD scholar in the Sociology Department. After I appeared for the UGC-NET examination in June, I was among those who raised concerns about all the problems with the Sociology paper—typos, factual errors, and questions that were unclear or confusing. I wrote about it in July.

Now, the NTA itself has acknowledged these issues.

According to the testing body, an expert committee found "major factual, typographical and translation errors" as well as repeated questions in the original paper. But my question is simple: Why couldn't the NTA get the examination right the first time?

'This Exam Isn't Optional for Me'

Alongside my regular coursework, research, thesis, and other PhD responsibilities, I spent months preparing for the UGC-NET examination before finally appearing for it in June.

I come from a humble background in Bihar, and getting to this point has not been easy. I worked hard to secure admission to Aligarh Muslim University on merit.

This examination matters deeply to me and to my future. Building a career, becoming financially independent, and being able to support my family are extremely important to me.

I appeared for the UGC-NET because qualifying it is crucial for me to become eligible for an Assistant Professor position. It is a qualification that could determine whether the last several years of my academic life translate into a career.

That is why being told to prepare for and appear for the same examination all over again is not a small inconvenience. It affects my time, my research, my career plans, and the expectations that my family and I have built around my future.

'Hope NTA Gets It Right'

What I want the authorities to understand is that these 23 days are not the same for everyone. Some of my batchmates had already moved on and started preparing for PhD interviews or other competitive exams. Now, suddenly, they have to go back and prepare for UGC-NET all over again.

For me, too, these are not 23 days that I can entirely dedicate to this exam. I have to manage my research and thesis work along with preparing again for an exam that I had already spent months preparing for and appeared for in June.

I am not against the re-examination. If there were errors, the exam should be held again so that students get a fair chance. My problem is with the time we have been given.

We had already prepared for months and appeared for the exam once. Now, after all this time, we have been told that we have just 23 days to prepare and appear for it again.

I now can just hope that the NTA gets the exam right this time around.

NTA On Re-Exam

In a written response, the NTA said it had received several complaints about errors in the English, Commerce, and Sociology papers, following which it constituted a committee to examine them.

According to the NTA, the committee found several factual, typographical and translation errors in the three papers, including misspelt names of prominent scholars, garbled book titles, errors in the wording of questions, grammatical and punctuation mistakes, and the use of non-standard terms for established concepts. It also found that a significant number of questions from previous examinations had been repeated.

The NTA said it concluded that papers with defects of this nature did not meet the standards required for a fair and error-free examination. It further said that errors of such an extent could not be addressed simply by dropping questions after the challenge process.

“The committee recommended that, in the interest of holding a fair and error-free examination, these three papers should be re-conducted,” the NTA said.

(The Quint has reached out to the NTA on the specific issue of the time given to students for re-examination. The article will be updated when a response is received.)

(All 'My Report' branded stories are submitted by citizen journalists to The Quint and the views expressed above are the citizen journalist's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)