The examination overload, its enormous cost

1. At a Glance

• What it is: Indian students now face a "cascade" of examinations instead of a single assessment. Board exams are followed by national entrance tests (JEE, NEET, NATA, CLAT, CUET) and then postgraduate tests (GATE, CAT, CUET-PG). As a result, sustained academic performance counts for less in admissions and careers. [1]
• The core argument: India's "obsession with layers of examinations must end". The focus should return to "the forgotten value of sustained academic performance". [1]
• Why it matters for UPSC: The topic connects exam integrity (paper leaks, the National Testing Agency), coaching-industry regulation, student mental health and access to higher education. These are recurring GS-II themes on education and governance, and also GS-IV and Essay themes. [1][2][8]

2. Why in the News

• An op-ed, "The examination overload, its enormous cost", by Furqan Qamar appeared in The Hindu on 30 October 2026 (Page 16, Chennai edition). [1]
• The author is Vice Chancellor of Integral University, Lucknow. He is a former Secretary General of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), former VC of the Central University of Himachal Pradesh and the University of Rajasthan, and former Adviser (Education) in the Planning Commission. [1]
• Continuing context:
• Parliament passed the anti-paper-leak law in 2024. [3][4]
• The Radhakrishnan High-Level Committee on NTA reform was set up in June 2024. [7]
• On coaching-centre regulation, the Ministry of Education answered a question in Parliament in August 2026. [8]

3. Background & Evolution

• Earlier model: Students "could focus on their education, confident that their academic results would determine admission to higher education and career opportunities". [1]
• Shift to entrance tests: Gaining admission now means clearing several layers of tests.
• Engineering: JEE
• Medicine: NEET
• Architecture: NATA
• Law: CLAT

• Central and other universities: CUET, or a university's own entrance exam [1]

• Postgraduate layer: A good bachelor's degree "does not guarantee postgraduate admission". Students then face GATE, CAT, CUET-PG and individual university tests. [1]

• Root cause cited: Affordable, quality higher education is in short supply, so many candidates make repeated attempts. [1]
• Key milestones:
• January 2024: The Ministry of Education circulated Guidelines for Regulation of Coaching Centres to States and Union Territories (16.01.2024). [8][11]
• February 2024: Parliament passed the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024. [2][3][4]
• 21 June 2024: The Act came into force. [6]
• 22 June 2024: The Ministry of Education set up a High-Level Committee of Experts under Dr K. Radhakrishnan. [7]
• 23 June 2024: Rules under the Act were notified. [6]

• 2025: Rajasthan introduced a Coaching Centres (Control and Regulation) Bill, and Jharkhand enacted a Coaching Centre (Control and Regulation) Act. [9][10]

• Earlier state law: The Bihar Coaching Institute (Control & Regulation) Act, 2010 is an early state-level example. [12]

4. Core Static Facts

Item	Fact	Source
Central anti-malpractice law	Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024	[5]
In force from	21 June 2024; Rules notified 23 June 2024	[6]
Bodies covered	UPSC, SSC, Railway Recruitment Boards, IBPS (banking recruitment), National Testing Agency (all NTA computer-based exams, including NEET, JEE and CUET)	[2][3]
General penalty	3 to 5 years' imprisonment plus a fine of up to ₹10 lakh	[3]
Organised malpractice	5 to 10 years' imprisonment plus a minimum fine of ₹1 crore	[3]
Candidates	Generally excluded from the criminal provisions. They are governed by the exam authority's own unfair-means policy.	[2]
NTA reform panel	High-Level Committee chaired by Dr K. Radhakrishnan, set up 22 June 2024, asked to report within 2 months	[7]
Panel's terms of reference	(i) Reform of the examination process; (ii) better data security; (iii) structure and functioning of NTA	[7]
Coaching guidelines	Ministry of Education; circulated 16 January 2024; States/UTs to adopt them through their own legal frameworks	[8]
Coaching guidelines: content	Registration conditions, fees, infrastructure, code of conduct, mental well-being, no batch segregation, record-keeping, grievance redressal	[8]
Entrance tests named in the op-ed	JEE, NEET, NATA, CLAT, CUET (undergraduate); GATE, CAT, CUET-PG (postgraduate)	[1]

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Economic

• Repeat attempts caused by a shortage of affordable, quality higher education make families spend more and keep young people out of the workforce for longer. [1]
• A parallel coaching economy has grown large enough that the Union government issued guidelines and several States passed laws on registration and fees. [8][9]

Social / Equity

• Multiple tests favour students who can pay for coaching and for repeated attempts. This works against rural, low-income and first-generation learners. [1]
• Mental health: the coaching guidelines emphasise mental well-being. [8] The Jharkhand Act requires coaching centres to engage counsellors certified as Clinical or Rehabilitation Psychologists, or holding other Rehabilitation Council of India certification. [10]
• The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education (2025) noted fraud, suicides, drug abuse and mental-health struggles in coaching centres. [9]

Governance / Ethical

• When an exam's integrity fails, many candidates are harmed at once. This is why the 2024 Act and the Radhakrishnan Committee's remit on data security and NTA functioning matter. [2][7]
• A central law against organised paper-leak gangs sits alongside State laws, for example Uttar Pradesh's Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024. [13]

Legal / Constitutional

• The Act deters malpractice through criminal penalties while protecting bona fide candidates from criminal prosecution. [2][3]
• Coaching regulation is mainly done through State laws, since the Centre's guidelines are advisory for States and UTs. Examples are Bihar (2010), Haryana (2024 Bill), Rajasthan (2025 Bill) and Jharkhand (2025 Act). [8][9][10][12]

Administrative

• A single national testing agency (NTA) conducts very high-stakes exams. This creates concentration risk: one security breach can affect lakhs of candidates. [2][7]
• Reform direction argued in the op-ed: give more weight to sustained academic performance (board results and degree performance) and less to stacked entrance filters. [1]

6. Recent Developments (last 12–18 months)

• 2025: PRS published a legislative brief on the Rajasthan Coaching Centres (Control and Regulation) Bill, 2025 (dated 2 September 2025). [9]
• 2025–26: The Jharkhand Coaching Centre (Control and Regulation) Act, 2025 was enacted (Act 1 of 2026) and made certified mental-health counsellors mandatory. [10]
• August 2026: In reply to a Parliament question, the Ministry of Education confirmed that the 16.01.2024 coaching guidelines had been sent to States/UTs to adopt through their own legal frameworks. [8]
• 30 October 2026: Furqan Qamar's op-ed in The Hindu called for ending the "layers of examinations". [1]

7. Prelims Hooks

• The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024 came into force on 21 June 2024. [6]
• Rules under the 2024 Act were notified on 23 June 2024. [6]
• The Act covers UPSC, SSC, RRBs, IBPS and NTA. [2]
• NTA's NEET, JEE and CUET fall within the Act. [2]
• General offence: 3 to 5 years' jail plus a fine of up to ₹10 lakh. [3]
• Organised malpractice: 5 to 10 years' jail plus a minimum fine of ₹1 crore. [3]
• Candidates are generally outside the Act's criminal provisions; the exam authority's unfair-means policy applies to them. [2]
• The High-Level Committee on NTA reform was chaired by Dr K. Radhakrishnan (constituted 22 June 2024). [7]
• The Radhakrishnan Committee was asked to report within two months. [7]
• The Ministry of Education circulated the Guidelines for Regulation of Coaching Centres on 16 January 2024. [8]
• The coaching guidelines prohibit batch segregation. [8]
• Bihar regulated coaching institutes as early as 2010. [12]
• The Jharkhand Coaching Centre Act, 2025 requires counsellors certified by the Rehabilitation Council of India or equivalent. [10]
• GATE, CAT and CUET-PG are postgraduate-level entrance tests; NATA is for architecture and CLAT is for law. [1]

8. Why a Tough Law Has Not Ended the Leak Problem

• The Act punishes after the damage is done
• The 2024 Act sets jail of 5 to 10 years and a minimum fine of ₹1 crore for organised malpractice [3].
• Punishment comes only after a leak has happened and the exam is already spoiled.

• The fear of jail does not stop every gang, and it does nothing for the lakhs of students who must sit the exam again.

• Two years later, a re-exam was still needed

• The Act came into force in June 2024, and the Radhakrishnan Committee was set up the next day [6][7].
• In 2026 the Education Minister and Dr K. Radhakrishnan were still reviewing preparations for a NEET-UG 2026 re-examination [14].

• So the law and the committee did not stop at least one national exam from breaking down. Failures were not prevented, only punished.

• One agency, one weak point

• NTA runs NEET, JEE and CUET [2]. This is concentration risk: when one body handles everything, one breach hits everyone at once.
• Every new national test added to the 'cascade' [1] puts more of the same risk on the same agency.
• A criminal law cannot fix this. Only changes to how NTA is built and how it protects data can, and that was the Committee's own remit [7].

9. The Case for Entrance Tests, and Where It Falls Short

• The strongest argument for entrance tests
• India has many school boards, each with its own syllabus and marking. A 90% from one board may not mean the same as a 90% from another.
• A single common test puts every student on one scale. This was the stated logic behind replacing separate university tests with CUET [1].

• Without a common test, colleges might set their own exams, and students would face even more papers.

• What this argument gets right

• Mixing marks from different boards is a real fairness problem. Simply going back to board marks alone would bring that problem back.

• Where it falls short

• A common test is meant to replace other filters, not sit on top of them. The op-ed shows that students now face board exams, then JEE, NEET, CLAT or CUET, and then GATE, CAT or CUET-PG [1].
• A test only decides who gets a scarce seat. It does not add any seats. The op-ed names the real cause: affordable, quality higher education is in short supply [1].
• While seats stay scarce, a fairer test still produces repeat attempts and coaching demand. It only changes who wins the race.

10. Why Coaching Laws Treat the Symptom

• Rules on registration do not reduce the demand for coaching
• Bihar has regulated coaching institutes since 2010 [12].
• Fifteen years later, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education (2025) still recorded fraud, suicides, drug abuse and mental-health struggles in coaching centres [9].

• The laws control how centres run: fees, buildings, records [8]. They do not touch why students go to them, which is the stacked entrance filters [1].

• Students move, but the law stays inside one State

• The Centre's 2024 guidelines are only advice. Each State must adopt them through its own law [8].
• So the rules differ from State to State. Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand are at different stages [9][10][12].

• A student who travels to another State for coaching gets only that State's level of protection, which may be none.

• Counselling helps, but it comes late

• Jharkhand requires counsellors certified by the Rehabilitation Council of India or equivalent [10]. This is the strongest welfare rule so far.
• But a counsellor deals with stress that has already built up. The pressure itself, from repeated high-stakes attempts, stays the same [1].

11. What Cutting Exams Alone Would Not Fix

• The pressure would move, not go away
• The op-ed wants more weight on sustained academic performance, meaning board and degree marks [1].
• If board marks decide admission, the high-stakes moment simply shifts to Class 12. Coaching would follow it there.

• Schools would also feel pressure to give higher marks, which brings back the problem of comparing different boards.

• The real limit is the number of seats

• Many candidates make repeated attempts because quality, affordable seats are scarce [1].
• Any method of choosing students, whether by test or by marks, still has to turn most of them away.
• So reform of exams has to go together with growth in Gross Enrolment Ratio (the share of young people of college age who are actually enrolled in higher education) at institutions that are good and affordable.

12. Who Should Act Next, and How

• Ministry of Education and NTA: prevent breaches, not just punish them
• The Radhakrishnan Committee was asked to cover data security and NTA's structure [7].

• The NEET-UG 2026 re-examination [14] shows this work is not finished. Progress on these points should be made public every year.

• Ministry of Education and universities: combine the two measures

• Give fixed, published weight to board or degree performance alongside test scores, as the op-ed argues [1].

• This keeps a common scale but reduces how much a single exam day decides a student's future.

• States: turn the 2024 guidelines into law

• States without a coaching law should adopt the Centre's 16 January 2024 guidelines [8].

• They should copy Jharkhand's rule on certified mental-health counsellors [10] and the guidelines' ban on batch segregation [8].

• Centre and States together: add seats

• Education is on the Concurrent List (subjects on which both Parliament and State legislatures can make laws).
• Both governments therefore share the job of adding affordable, quality seats, which is the root cause the op-ed names [1].

13. Anchors for Answers

• Report/Committee: High-Level Committee of Experts on NTA reform, chaired by Dr K. Radhakrishnan (June 2024) [7]; Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, observations on coaching centres (2025) [9]
• Law/Case: Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024: 5 to 10 years' jail and a minimum ₹1 crore fine for organised malpractice [3][5]; Jharkhand Coaching Centre (Control and Regulation) Act, 2025, with mandatory certified counsellors [10]; Bihar Coaching Institute (Control & Regulation) Act, 2010 [12]
• Data: A NEET-UG 2026 re-examination was needed two years after the 2024 Act [14]

14. Mains Relevance

• GS-II: "Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Education"; "Statutory, regulatory and various quasi-judicial bodies" (NTA).
• GS-I: Society — youth, mental health, social effects of competitive pressure.
• GS-IV: Integrity in public examinations; probity in institutions.
• Essay: "Examinations measure memory, not merit."

Possible question stems:

1. "India's shift from sustained academic performance to multiple entrance examinations has deepened inequity and distress among the youth." Critically examine, and suggest reforms. (GS-II, 15 marks)
2. Evaluate whether the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024 is enough to restore the credibility of high-stakes national examinations, given the questions raised about NTA's functioning. (GS-II, 10 marks)
3. "Regulating coaching centres treats the symptom, not the disease." Discuss with reference to the Centre's 2024 guidelines and recent State laws. (GS-II, 15 marks)

15. Related Topics to Study Next

• National Testing Agency: structure and reform. It conducts NEET, JEE and CUET, and was the subject of the Radhakrishnan Committee. [7]
• NEP 2020 assessment reforms. These are the policy basis for rebalancing board exams and entrance tests.
• CUET and centralised admissions. CUET is an example of whether a single common test reduces or adds to the exam burden. [1]
• Coaching-centre regulation: Centre and States. This covers federal questions in the education sector, which falls in the Concurrent List. [8][9]
• Student suicides and mental health. NCRB data and the National Mental Health Policy are needed for the social dimension. [9]
• Gross Enrolment Ratio and supply of higher education. A shortage of quality seats is the root cause identified in the op-ed. [1]
• State anti-paper-leak laws. Uttar Pradesh's 2024 Act is one example of Centre–State laws on the same issue. [13]

16. NCERT Concepts to Revise

• Concurrent List (Polity): Education is on the Concurrent List, explaining why both the Centre and States make coaching and paper-leak laws.
• Gross Enrolment Ratio (Economy): Shortage of quality higher-education seats, measured by enrolment ratio, is the op-ed's root cause of repeated entrance attempts.
• Tertiary education (Economy): Entrance-test layers arise because college and university seats are scarce and costly, as this concept explains.
• Union Public Service Commission (Polity): UPSC is one of the recruitment bodies covered by the 2024 anti-paper-leak Act.
• Staff Selection Commission (Polity): SSC is another recruitment body covered by the 2024 Act on unfair means.
• Equity (Geography): Multiple costly exams favour those who can pay for coaching, raising the equal-access question.

17. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• The Act punishes candidates: wrong. Candidates are generally excluded from its criminal provisions. [2]
• Confusing the dates: the Act's commencement (21 June 2024), the Rules (23 June 2024) and the Radhakrishnan Committee (22 June 2024) fall within three days of each other. [6][7]
• Penalty mix-up: "₹10 lakh" is the maximum fine for ordinary offences, while "₹1 crore" is the minimum fine for organised malpractice. [3]
• Coaching guidelines are binding central law: wrong. They were circulated to States/UTs to adopt through their own legal frameworks. [8]
• NATA and CLAT: NATA is for architecture and CLAT is for law. GATE, CAT and CUET-PG are postgraduate tests, not undergraduate ones. [1]