The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 Review Committee Chairman Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar said that national entrance examinations like NEET, JEE and CUET are a prominent feature of Indian higher education. However, most undergraduate admissions are conducted through state, university and institutional processes, not national tests, he asserted. "A common national examination may centralise testing without centralising the entire admission process," Kumar stated.
In an article titled 'Beyond NEET and JEE: Is Indian higher education truly centralised?' Kumar stated that in order to understand centralisation, we must look beyond who conducts the examination to who decides eligibility and merit lists, and conducts counselling and admits students. Kumar is also Chairman, Board of Governors at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He asserted that "a common national examination may centralise testing without centralising the entire admission process."
In a post on X, the former IIT Delhi professor shared his article, stating that the size of Indian higher education explains why it uses various admission processes.
Beyond NEET and JEE: Is Indian higher education truly centralised?
— Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar (@mamidala90) August 15, 2026
National examinations and state and institutional admission pathways serve different educational purposes and can work together https://t.co/ER0U7T9l94
The article highlighted, citing the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2023-24 report, that there are 4.5 crore students in higher education, including 3.46 crore undergraduates. "Another 5.69 lakh are enrolled in integrated UG-PG programmes. Universities and their units have about 1.09 crore students across UG, PG and PhD levels."
"The AISHE records 1,289 universities or university-level institutions, 48,246 colleges and 15,221 standalone institutions. A system this size needs several routes to admissions," he added. Kumar further noted that state counselling, board marks, university merit lists and institutional procedures remain widely used in India's higher education system. "These different methods make it difficult to describe the system as completely centralised," he said.
Explaining that NEET, JEE and CUET do not operate in the same way, Kumar asserted that NEET, a statutory common entrance examination for undergraduate medical admissions, is used by central, state, private, and deemed institutions. The Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) manages specified national seat pools, he stated. State authorities conduct counselling for the state-quota seats and apply the relevant reservation, domicile and eligibility provisions, he added.
Kumar further noted:
"JEE works differently. IITs use JEE Advanced; JEE Main is used by the NITs, IIITs and other government-funded technical institutions. Seats are allocated through the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA). Some states and institutions also use JEE Main scores under their own arrangements. The National Testing Agency does not allot those seats. Neither JEE Main nor Advanced is a universal requirement."
Explaining how CUET also works differently, Kumar stated that participating universities make the admission decisions. State, deemed and private universities often use CUET as one of several admission routes, he clarified.
The former UGC chairman also highlighted the several state-level entrance examination systems for engineering and other courses such as in Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. India uses common national tests for selected admissions and decentralised procedures for many others, he noted.
