A day after the Union Education Ministry sought a detailed report from the National Testing Agency (NTA) on reforming the overall system, NTA officials said that 600 experts from its examination team have been removed and new experts onboarded as part of a revamp.

In a meeting with NTA officials on August 17, Union Education Minister Prahlad Joshi had directed that all necessary security and related infrastructural facilities should be put in place for the smooth conduct of examinations.

“We are revamping the examination team by removing 600 experts and onboarding new experts. A four-tier question paper checking system will be put in place to strengthen the scrutiny of examination papers,” a senior NTA official said.

The NTA said that 20 to 25 new officials will be inducted over the next two to three weeks, while NTA offices will be swiftly shifted to their new premises, where security will be reinforced with the aid of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) teams.

Operational overhaul

The revamp comes after the NTA’s announcement earlier this week that it would conduct a re-exam for the UGC-NET exams in Sociology, Commerce, and English, following complaints of errors in question papers. This was the NTA’s second major lapse this year after a paper leak forced the cancellation of the NEET-UG exam earlier this summer.

The Education Ministry has directed the NTA to conduct a thorough audit of all exam processes and submit a report on corrective action, officials said. Mr. Joshi had also directed that strict compliance to the established exam protocols must be enforced.

Sources said that a complete overhaul of the Confidential Operations (CONOPS) architecture was discussed. This would include setting up secluded rooms, air-gapped systems, and device-deposit protocols for people handling confidential information regarding question-paper setting.

Air-gapped systems are computers or networks which are physically and wirelessly isolated from unsecured networks like the internet. The systems have no wi-fi, bluetooth, or wired connections, which make remote cyberattacks nearly impossible.

New domain specialists

Officials in the meeting also said that more than fifty staffers had been removed from the NTA. Ten new professional leadership positions — including Chief Technology Officer, Chief Finance Officer, Chief Information Security Officer, and General Managers for Test Security, Research and Development, and Psychometrics — have been advertised, and are being onboarded.

“Domain specialists are being brought in from the private sector for cyber security, psychometrics, question-paper design, and other specialised areas,” officials said.

In its chargesheet on the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak, the Central Bureau of Investigation had pointed out that experts who set papers for Biology, Chemistry, and Physics had full access to the questions, which they then leaked. These experts faced no physical checking or frisking when entering or exiting restricted confidential zones, while the NTA facility lacked a dedicated live CCTV monitoring control room.

“We are taking steps to put corrective steps in place to address these issues,” NTA officials said.

Published - August 19, 2026 12:12 am IST