National Testing Service (NTS) will take over the responsibility to administer most of the entrance examination tests conducted by CBSE and ease the burden of CBSE. This is going to start from 2018. It is expected to start from January 2018 with National Entrance Examination for Technical Institutions (NEETI), which is an entrance for admission to engineering students. In future, almost all professional courses’ entrance examinations conducted by the CBSE will be shifted to NTS, making it the largest examination conducting body in the country.

As of now, the CBSE conducts its regular class X and XII board examinations and also some other tests, viz. Joint Engineering Entrance (JEE), UGC’s National Eligibility Test (NET) twice a year, Central Teacher Eligibility Test twice a year and also the entrance test for Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas. Board examinations alone are taken by 27 lakh students and the entrance examinations are taken by almost 40 lakh aspirants.

One of the purpose behind the establishment of NTS is to set up a dedicated body and ease the burden off the CBSE and the IITs and let them focus on their key areas.

As of now, the government is not getting private sector involved in setting up of NTS. It will borrow from the expertise of the CBSE in the form of personnel experienced with the conduct of examination. Rs.50 crores are expected to be the initial cost for setting up and infrastructure of NTS.

Our Take:
By taking steps towards establishment of NTS, the government has fulfilled a demand pending for many years. A dedicated body for conduct of nation-wide examinations is definitely needed to de-clutter institutions like the CBSE, the IITs and the IIMs, which are also given the responsibility to hold various examinations whose administration can be quite a daunting task. But setting up of NTS can help these institutions to focus on improving the quality of their respective areas, research as well as setting up new benchmarks in their respective areas.