About
UGC NET or NTA-UGC-NET, is the examination for determining the eligibility for the post of assistant professor and/or Junior Research Fellowship award in Indian universities and colleges. The examination is conducted by National Testing Agency on behalf of University Grants Commission. Till July 2018, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducted the UGC NET exam, which the NTA has been conducting since December 2018. Currently, the exam is being conducted twice a year in the months of June and December in online mode.
| Acronym | NET |
|---|---|
| Type | CBT |
| Developer / administrator | National Testing Agency |
| Year started | 1989–90 |
| Duration | 3 hours (180 minutes) |
| Score / grade range | 0–100 (Paper I) 0–200 (Paper II) |
| Score / grade validity | Three years (for JRF) Lifetime (for Assistant Professor) |
| Offered | Twice annually |
| Restrictions on attempts | No restriction |
| Countries / regions | India |
| Languages | Mainly English and Hindi |
Jobs for NET qualified candidates
Grants Commission (UGC) announced in 2013 that the candidates who clear the NET successfully would be eligible for lucrative also for private college lectureship jobs in public sector undertakings (PSUs). PSUs can use UGC-NET scores for the recruitment process of the posts of executives in their organizations in disciplines like science (R&D), management, corporate communications, human resources, and finance. This step taken by the UGC would also increase the number of students taking the UGC-NET examination which has witnessed a gradual decline in recent years.
UGC NET Eligibility Criteria
- Candidates securing at least 55% marks in their Master’s Degree or equivalent from a recognized university in Humanities (including languages), Social Science, Computer Science and Applications, Electronic Science, etc. are eligible to appear for the UGC NET exam conducted by NTA.
- However, candidates belonging to the Non-Creamy Layer of Other Backward Classes (OBC-NC), Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Persons with Disability (PwD), and Transgender category have to score at least 50% marks.
- Candidates who are pursuing their Master’s degree or are waiting for their result or whose qualifying examinations have been delayed can apply for the test. However, such candidates will be admitted provisionally and will be considered for award of JRF or recruitment as Assistant Professor only when they will pass their Master’s Degree with at least 55% marks (50% marks for reserved category).in addition, they are required to complete their Master’s degree within two years from the date of the UGC NET 2022 Result with the required percentage of marks, failing which they will be treated as disqualified.
- Candidates with a PhD degree whose Master’s level examination was completed before September 19, 1991 (irrespective of the date of declaration of result) will be eligible for a relaxation of 5% in aggregate marks (i.e. from 55% to 50%) for appearing in UGC NET 2022.
- Transgender candidates will be provided with the same relaxation in exam fee, age, and qualifying criteria for NET (i.e. JRF and Assistant Professor) as are available to SC/ ST/ PwD categories. However, the required subject-wise cutoffs for the Transgender category will be the lowest among all the reserved categories including SC/ ST/ PwD/ OBC–NCL in the respective subject.
- Candidates are suggested to choose the same NET subject for Paper 2 as their specialization in Post Graduation. However, if your Post-Graduation subject is not covered in the list of 81 NET subjects, you can appear in a related subject.
- Candidates possessing Post Graduation Diploma/ Certificate awarded by Indian University/ Institute or Foreign Degree/ Diploma/ Certificate awarded by a Foreign University/ Institute should in their own interest, ascertain the equivalence of their Diploma/ Degree/ Certificate with Master’s Degree of recognized Indian universities from Association of Indian Universities (AIU), New Delhi.
UGC Net Qualifying Criteria And Cut Off Percentages
UGC NET Procedure and Criteria for the declaration of result steps:
- Obtain minimum qualifying marks with aggregate 55% marks to General and 50% to others in master’s degree.
- The paper will be divided into two papers: Papers 1 and 2. The candidates would have to attempt a total of (both papers 1 and 2) 150 questions in three hours.
- UGC NET qualifying cut-off marks for the General category is 40% in Paper I and II while the qualifying marks for SC/ST/OBC-NCL/PwD/Transgender categories is 35% in Papers I and II.
- Amongst those candidates who have obtained Minimum marks a merit list will be prepared subject-wise and category-wise using the aggregate marks of two papers secured by such candidates.
- For lectureship, the aggregate cut-off marks for the General category are between 54 and 60, for OBC NCL it is 49–56, for SC/ST it is 45–54 and for EWS it is 48–58 (for all subjects).
- On the other hand, the Top 6% of candidates will be selected for eligibility of NET Lectureship. Simultaneously, a separate list for JRF would be prepared.
- A separate merit list for the award of JRF will be prepared from amongst the NET qualified candidates figuring in the above merit list prepared.
- Until 2018 UGC released the certificates but from December 2018 onward, NTA releases the UGC NET e-certificate and JRF award letter on its official website for the qualified candidates. Successful candidates would be able to download their e-certificates and award letters online at ugcnet.nta.nic.in.
UGC NET Age Limit and Relaxation
UGC NET 2022 Age Limit and Relaxation for Junior Research Fellowship and Assistant Professorship are given below:
- Junior Research Fellow (JRF): Candidates should not be more than 31 years as of October 01, 2022.
- Candidates belonging to OBC-NC, SC, ST, PwD categories, Transgenders, and Women applicants are provided with a relaxation of up to 5 years.
- Candidates with research experience will also be provided age relaxation equivalent to the years/ period spent on research in the respective subject or Post Graduation Degree.
- Relaxation to researchers can be of up to 5 years and will only be provided on production of a certificate from the appropriate authority.
- Candidates with L.L.M. Degree will be permitted an upper age relaxation of 3 years.
- Candidates who have served in the armed forces will be provided with the benefit of relaxation of up to 5 years subject to the length of service in the armed forces up to June 01, 2022.
- Total age relaxation on the above grounds shall not exceed 5 years under any circumstance.
- Assistant Professor: There is no upper age limit to apply for Assistant Professor.
Reservations quota in UGC-NET and Junior Research Fellowships
- Candidates clearing JRF exams are also eligible for the National Eligibility Test. UGC follows the Government of India’s reservation policy in UGC-NET, as per which a minimum of 27%, 10%, 15%, 7.5% for OBC, EWS, SC, ST respectively and 5% for PWD (Earlier the reservation for Higher Education is 3%, now it is 5 percentage for PWD as per RPWD Act 2016 irrespective of the caste which they belong, Reservation for PWD is for benchmark disability)
- The reservation is applicable for UGC-NET Examination being University Grants Commission comes under Central Education Institution Act under Sec. 2(d)(ii) and National Testing Agency (NTS) comes under Central Education Institution Act under Sec. 2(d)(v).
- Now as per the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 National Testing Agency (NTA) & University Grants Commission (UGC) is obliged to provide a 5% reservation to PWD as per Sec. 32(1) of RPWD Act, 2016 to those who are having above 40% disability being NTA is an Educational Agency registered under Societies Registration Act, 1860 and as per Central Educational Institution (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 Sec. 2. (d)(v) an educational institution set up by the Central Government under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
- Thereby as per Sec. 32(1) of the RPWD Act, 2016 Differentially abled persons (those who are above 40% disability) are eligible for 5% reservation in higher education. As per Central Education Institution (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 UGC & NTA is providing the reservation to SC/ST, OBC, General-Economically Weaker Section, etc.
- Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016
- 32. (1) All Government institutions of higher education and other higher education institutions receiving aid from the Government shall reserve not less than five percent. seats for persons with benchmark disabilities.
UGC NET Subject for Paper 2
The subject for Paper 2 needs to be chosen by the candidate. A candidate can choose the subject of his/her post-graduation or a related subject. NTA UGC NET is conducted for total of 81 subjects. Click on the PDF links below to check the UGC NET Paper 2 syllabus for all 81 subjects.
Application Fee:
For General Candidates – INR 1000/-
For OBC Candidates – INR 500/-
For SC/ST/PwD/Transgender Candidates – INR 250/-
UGC NET June 2021 Cities of Examination:
A candidate has to select any four cities of his/her choice. The board will be made to allow the city of examination of the candidates in order of the choice opted by them in their application form. However, in some exceptional circumstances, a different city of the nearby area may be allotted. Click here to know the list of Exam Centres.
UGC NET 2022 Exam Pattern
UGC NET 2022 June Examination shall be conducted as Computer Based Test (CBT) only. The Online Test will consist of two papers. both the papers will consist of objective type, multiple-choice questions. There will be no break between two papers.
| Paper | Number of Questions | Marks | Duration |
| Paper 1 | 50 | 100 | 03 hours (180 minutes) |
| Paper 2 | 100 | 200 |
Note: For each correct response the candidate will get 2 marks but there is no negative marking for incorrect answer.
UGC NET Paper Details
Exam Mode: The entrance test will be organized in Online CBT mode.
Number of Papers: There will be two papers for the exam – Paper-I and Paper-II.
Number of Questions: A total of 150 questions will be there in the exam paper. 50 questions in Paper I and 100 questions in Paper-II.
Type of Questions: The question paper will contain multiple-choice type questions.
Language Medium: The question paper will be available in the medium language of English and Hindi.
Time Duration: Paper I will be of 1-hour duration while Paper II will be of 2 hours.
Total Marks: Paper 1 will be 100 marks and Paper-II will be 200 marks.
Marking Scheme: For every correct answer, 2 marks will be given. There will be no provision of negative marking for incorrect answers.
UGC NET Cut Off
UGC NET Cut Off will be published online by the authority after the entrance test. Separate category wise and subject wise merit lists will be drawn for the students successfully securing the cut off marks. In the below table we have mentioned the cut off marks for various categories as per last year trends:
| Category | Minimum qualifying marks (in %) | |
| Paper – I | Paper – II | |
| General candidates | 40% | 40% |
| OBC – NCL/PWD/ST/SC candidates | 35% | 35% |
UGC NET 2022 Selection Procedure
Candidates qualifying for the entrance test of UGC NET 2022, will be selected in the subject wise and category wise merit list published online. Top 6% of total students who have appeared for both the papers in the test will be considered qualified in the entrance test. Admission into various Indian Universities or Institutions for the position of Assistant professor or JRF will be offered on the basis of cut off score secured as per their categories. Top 15% of candidates from each category and subject will be selected and declared eligible for Assistant Professor Position only.
UGC NET Books
There are some of the important books that will help you to prepare better for UGC NET . Candidates must be well versed in their respective subjects for Paper 2. They should rigorously go through books of their bachelor’s and masters’ curriculum. For Paper 1 they can follow the given books:
Here is a list of books to prepare for UGC NET Paper 1:
| Name of the Book | Author | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Trueman’s UGC NET/ SLET General Paper I | M. Gagan (Author), Sajit Kumar | Danika Publishing Company |
| UGC NET/ JRF/ SLET General Paper-1 Teaching & Research Aptitude | Arihant Express | Arihant Publication |
| CBSE UGC NET/SET/JRF – Paper 1: Teaching and Research Aptitude | KVS Madaan | Pearson Education |
| UGC NET/ SET Paper 1 | — | McGraw Hill Education |
| CBSE UGC-NET: Teaching and Research Aptitude | Dr. M S Ansari & RPH Editorial Board | Ramesh Publishing House |
NTA UGC NET 2022 Exam- FAQs
What is the exam pattern of UGN NET Paper 1 and 2?
Ans: The updated marking scheme of UGC NET is given below:
| Type of Answer | Marks Allotted |
|---|---|
| Correct Answer | 2 marks |
| Incorrect Answer | 0 mark |
| No Answer | 0 mark |
Is there any sectional time limit in UGC NET 2022?
Ans: No. There is no sectional time limit. Candidates can move to and fro among any sections of both papers. Paper 1 is going to be the same for every candidate and paper 2 is subject-specific which is specially designed to test the in-depth knowledge of candidates. Paper will have a total of 150 multiple choice questions and candidates will be given 2 marks for every correct answer, no negative marking will be there.
How can I prepare for paper 2 of UGC NET?
Ans: Candidates have to follow the syllabus provided by NTA to prepare for the exam. Paper 2 is conducted for 81 subjects. Candidates can select the subject for paper 2 that is similar or related to their post-graduation subjects. It will have 100 MCQs only on the stream chosen by the candidate. All the questions of Paper 2 will be compulsory. It is suggested to thoroughly revise all the topics of the Bachelors and Masters curriculum of your subject.
CONCULASION
Eugrown Team, Always Here To Help You And Guide You.Good Luck For The Bright Future.






