UGC promises easy e-certificates

The Human Resource Development minister Kapil Sibal inaugurated the 'e-certificate' for the University Grants Commission - National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) qualified candidates.

The UGC has introduced steps for online registration of the NET examination so that all the necessary information with regard to the candidates is captured, including their photographs, at the time of registration itself.The information is used for the award of these e-certificates once the results are announced.

These e-certificates will cut down the time lag for issuing the certificate from 6-8 months to 6 days. Similarly, whenever an institution writes to UGC for verification of authenticity of the NET Certificate presented by the candidates, the authenticity of the certificate will now be done within a span of 24 hours as against the earlier 4 months.

The University Grants Commission conducts the National Eligibility Test (NET) twice in a year; in June and December to determine the eligibility for the recruitment of teachers as Assistant Professors in Institutions of Higher Learning and for the award of Junior Research
Fellowships (JRFs).

The Test is conducted in 77 subjects at 74 Centres spread across the country.The number of Fellowships under the NET scheme has been increased from 2,000 to 6,400 per
annum since 2010.