NTA overhaul: It has 39 permanent posts, then who are the 600 experts being removed?

For years, the agency's exams have relied on a vast support network beyond its own sanctioned strength. Now, as that system is dismantled, questions are being raised about who ran the machinery behind India's biggest entrance tests.

In Short

• Parliament data shows only 24 of NTA's 39 permanent posts are filled
• The agency also works with 73 contractual and 124 outsourced personnel
• The 600 being replaced belong to an external academic examination panel

The National Testing Agency is preparing for a major overhaul, but one question sits at the heart of the shake-up. If the agency has just 39 permanent posts, who exactly are the 600 “experts” now being removed? The scale of the exercise raises questions about how the NTA has been functioning, who these personnel are, what roles they perform and how much of the agency’s examination machinery has effectively been outsourced.

The Ministry of Education in the Rajya Sabha had recently noted that NTA has 39 sanctioned permanent posts, of which 24 were currently occupied at the time. The agency's permanent cadre is supplemented by contractual, outsourced and field-level personnel, as well as external experts involved in examination-related work. The sanctioned positions include senior administrative posts such as Director General, Joint Secretary, Director, Joint Director/Research Scientist, Deputy Director, Assistant Director and Senior Superintendent.

The Centre's data also showed that NTA had 73 contractual personnel, including advisors, consultants, software developers and young professionals. Another 124 personnel were outsourced for roles such as data analysts, legal associates, junior consultants and housekeeping staff.

Against this backdrop, the agency's recent decision to remove around 600 experts from its examination panel raises a basic question: who exactly are the 600 experts being removed?

THE 600 EXPERTS CONUNDRUM

The 600 experts being replaced are part of NTA's wider examination expert pool, rather than its permanent administrative cadre. However, the Parliament data does not specify whether all 600 were engaged as contractual personnel, outsourced staff or through a separate expert-panel arrangement.

NTA's staffing structure extends well beyond the sanctioned permanent posts. The ministry had clarified that NTA's core staff is supplemented by a large network of examination functionaries deployed during tests.

Depending on the examination, the agency engages observers, city coordinators, centre superintendents and members of State and District Level Coordination Committees, in coordination with state governments, centrally funded higher educational institutions, Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas.

This decentralised structure allows NTA to conduct examinations simultaneously across hundreds of cities despite having a relatively small permanent establishment.

The approximately 600 experts being removed form part of this broader examination ecosystem, but their exact status and roles are not clear from the staffing figures provided by the Centre. NTA's examinations require subject specialists and academic experts for functions associated with question-paper development, scrutiny and other examination-related processes, and these experts can be engaged separately from the agency's regular administrative workforce.

WHY THE OVERHAUL MATTERS

NTA has conducted more than 270 examinations involving over 6.6 crore registrations since its establishment in 2018, according to data submitted by the Centre to Parliament. The agency conducts several high-stakes examinations, including JEE Main, NEET UG and CUET, along with examinations such as UGC-NET.

For these examinations, question-paper quality is as important as the security of the paper. A question containing an error, having more than one plausible answer or falling outside the prescribed syllabus can affect candidates even when the examination itself is conducted securely.

That makes the composition and functioning of NTA's expert panels important.

The current restructuring therefore raises questions beyond the headline. How are these experts selected? What qualifications are required? What checks are carried out before they are empanelled? How are questions independently reviewed? And who is accountable if an error survives multiple levels of scrutiny?

NTA'S STAFFING MODEL COMES UNDER FOCUS

What the latest overhaul highlights is the extent to which NTA's examination system depends on personnel outside its small permanent administrative cadre. For lakhs of candidates appearing for NTA examinations, the key issue is not simply how many experts are on the panel, but whether the new system provides a transparent and robust process for selecting them, reviewing questions and fixing accountability at every stage.

As NTA moves to a new four-tier question-paper review system, the composition of its new expert panel will therefore be an important part of determining whether the overhaul addresses concerns around question-paper quality as well as examination security.

- Ends