UGC NET New Notification 2022: The University Grants Commission (UGC) has decided to extend the validity period of the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) award letter by one year. This decision has been taken in view of the difficulties faced by numerous scholars in the thick of the coronavirus outbreak.
The chairman of UGC, Jagadesh Kumar, took to Twitter to announce the decision. His tweet read, "UGC has landed on the decision to extend the validity period of the Junior Research Fellowship award letter upto one year. Hence, now the JRF award letter will be considered valid beyond the three year period. This decision has been taken keeping in view the problems and difficulties faced by the UGC NET qualified candidates in their admission process, during the Covid-19 pandemic situation. The notification for the same will be issued shortly".

CUET Exam to be conducted twice a year

Professor Jagadesh Kumar also informed that the NTA is mulling over the decision to conduct Central University Eligibility Test (CUET) twice a year, from the upcoming session onwards. he stated that CUET is not only limited for admission into central universities now, but numerous private universities are also expressing their desire to provide admission through CUET. Professor Kumar continued by stating that the importance of Board exams will not be reduced due to CUET. 

It is noteworthy that the UGC NET exam for December 2020 and June 2022 sessions had to be conducted simultaneously due to Covid-induced lockdown and the halting of academic activities. The exam was conducted between November 20, 2021 and January 5, 2022, owing to the same. Approximately 12 lakh candidates had registered for the examination, which was held for 81 subjects at 837 centres spread across 239 Indian cities.

Meanwhile, the Commission has also put forth a number of amendments to the existing guidelines for Phd programmes in new draft regulations. The draft UGC regulations, 2022 has proposed that almost 60% of the total seats for Phds should be occupied by the candidates who have qualified either the UGC NET exam or the JRF exam, while the remaining 40% seats shall be filled through the entrance test conducted by other universities.

Following this, the UGC has invited suggestions from various stakeholders on the draft Phd regulations 2022 by March 31, 2022.