Left parties renew call to scrap NTA, NEP after UGC-NET paper errors

The Left parties on Monday (August 17, 2026) renewed their demand for scrapping the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, after the NTA announced a retest for three papers of the UGC-NET June 2026 examination following complaints of errors in the question papers.

In a statement, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau said that the errors in the English, Commerce and Sociology papers highlighted the “entrenched rot” in the education system and exposed the NTA’s “abject incompetence” in conducting examinations.

“The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) reiterates its demand to scrap both the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the NEP 2020 – the root cause of the decay in the education system,” the party said.

CPI General Secretary D. Raja said the latest controversy underscored the crisis facing the education sector. He alleged that the NEP promoted “centralisation, commercialisation and communalisation” of education and had encouraged the growth of a “coaching mafia”.

“If our education is in crisis, how can the government talk of Viksit Bharat? Such an imagination cannot coexist in a country where the young have a bleak future ahead,” Mr. Raja said. He also argued that education should be handled by State Governments and reiterated the recommendation of the Kothari Commission that public expenditure on education should be raised to 6% of GDP.

CPI (ML) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said the incident reinforced students’ demands for substantive changes in the education system. “Removal of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan does not suffice. We need a comprehensive overhaul. The Government should consider scrapping NTA, which has failed to deliver its duties,” he said.