The National Testing Agency has officially extended the last date to apply for the UGC NET & CSIR NET 2020 examinations. A public notice issued through the NTA website earlier today indicated that aspirants can now apply online for the examinations till the last day of May 2020. The notice came in following tweets by the Minister of Human Resource Development regarding the extension. The decision came in as a response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and against several requests received by the agency in this regard. Incidentally, this is the second time that the NTA has decided to extend the application window. The agency previously extended the dates once in March 2020. A snapshot of the notice is provided here for readers to check the public notice.
An official notice released earlier on Friday at the website of the National Testing Agency i.e. nta.ac.in, clarified that the last date to apply online for the UGC NET 2020 and CSIR UGC NET 2020 exams is now extended till May 31, 2020. Eligible candidates can now apply online till 5.00 PM and pay the fees online till 11.30 PM on the specified date. Simultaneously, Minister of Human Resource Development, Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal also tweeted regarding the decision on the social networking platform. Incidentally, the NTA has now extended these dates for the second time in a row for the June 2020 sessions. The application dates of both these exams were already extended once in March 2020.
The UGC NET and CSIR UGC NET exams are conducted by the National Testing Agency to determine the eligibility of candidates for Assistant Lectureship and Junior Research Fellowship. This year, the NTA released official notifications for both of these exams and the online application window was opened on March 16, 2020. However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis in India, the agency was pushed to extend the last dates of the exam. Earlier in March, NTA extended the last dates to apply for these exams to May 2020. The last date to apply for UGC NET was extended to May 16, 2020, while the last date to apply for CSIR UGC NET 2020 was extended to May 15, 2020. However, now with the release of the latest notice, both these dates stand further extended till May 31, 2020.
NTA has also extended the application window of other exams conducted by the agency as evident from the latest notice. The application dates of ICAR 2020 and JNUEE 2020 has also been extended till May 31, 2020. The detailed schedule of events following the online application process including the issue of admit cards and exam dates will be declared at the NTA website after assessment of the further situations. In the meantime, the agency has advised students to devote the time to bridge learning gaps and prepare for the exams consistently.
