Education Minister orders NTA to audit exams and report corrective actions
India’s Education Minister Pralhad Joshi directed the National Testing Agency to conduct a comprehensive audit of examination processes and submit a corrective action report. The move follows the re-conduction decision for three UGC-NET papers and disclosures of staff changes and security upgrades a
Key takeaways
- Pralhad Joshi directed the NTA to audit all examination processes and submit a corrective action report.
- The NTA has removed over 50 staff and seeks about 10 new leadership roles to strengthen governance and security.
- Security upgrades include secluded rooms, air-gapped systems, and device-deposit protocols for handling confidential question-paper information.
What Happened
In New Delhi on Monday, August 17, 2026, Union Education Minister Pralhad Joshi met with the Secretary of the Department of Higher Education, the DG of the National Testing Agency (NTA), and other senior officials. The purpose of the meeting was to review measures taken to reform the education system after the NTA announced the re-conduction of UGC-NET papers in Sociology, Commerce, and English.
During the discussions, Joshi instructed the NTA to perform a thorough audit of all examination processes and to submit a report detailing corrective actions implemented. Officials reported that, in the wake of current issues, the NTA had removed more than 50 staff members and advertised for 10 new leadership roles, including a Chief Technology Officer, Chief Finance Officer, Chief Information Security Officer, and several positions focused on test security, research and development, and psychometrics, among others.
The minister emphasized a complete overhaul of the confidential operations architecture, with upcoming changes such as secluded rooms, air-gapped systems, and device-deposit protocols for personnel handling confidential question-paper information. Air-gapped systems are described as physically and wirelessly isolated from unsecured networks to prevent remote cyberattacks.
The discussion noted that the re-conduction of the three UGC-NET papers marks the second error-free examination attempt by the NTA in the current year, following the cancellation and re-run of the NEET-UG exam due to a paper leak. The NEET incident sparked youth protests at Jantar Mantar and contributed to the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Officials cited ongoing efforts to bring in domain specialists from the private sector for cybersecurity, psychometrics, and paper-design tasks to strengthen checks and balances around paper-setting protocols. They also highlighted past gaps where experts involved in paper-setting reportedly had extensive access and were not adequately screened entering or exiting restricted areas, and where CCTV monitoring in confidential zones was lacking, according to the CBI investigation into the NEET-UG incident.
An NTA official stated that steps are being taken to implement corrective measures to address these issues. The information was shared in the context of the August 17, 2026 briefing, which was published later in the day.
Sources reviewed
Project Chintan independently synthesized and analyzed information cross-checked across the sources listed above.
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