The UGC NET Exam that is to be commenced on December 2020 and June 2021 is postponed due to pandemic reasons. Now the exam committee had decided to merge the exams of UGC NET December 2020 and June 2021. Now the exam will be conducted on October 2021 to maintain the examination phase each year.
In this Section, You will come to know a basic overview of the UGC NET Exam. They are,
The UGC- NET exam was conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in over 90 cities based on 84 subjects until June 2018. After 2018, the National Testing Agency (NTA) replaces the CBSE to conduct the UGC- NET exam.
The UGC- NET is being conducted two times a year and the candidates can prepare and participate in this exam for the Assistant Professorship, Junior research fellowship or both on aggregated Indian Universities and Colleges. The qualifying candidate from this exam will be recruited for Assistant Professor or Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) posts. The candidate can also apply for the Assistant Professor post alone.
The Application Process for the UGC- NET exam has been announced by the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the application process has begun from 10th August 2021 to 5th September 2021. The exam is a Computer Based Test mode (CBT) and there is no change regarding the syllabus for the UGC- NEET.
| Abbreviation | NTA- National Testing Agency |
| Type | Autonomous Organization under Ministry of Ayush, Government of India |
| Purpose | Recruitment of Assistant Professors and Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) |
| Location | Noida, India |
| Chairman | Prof. M.S. Ananth |
| Director | Dr Vineet Joshi |
| Posting | Assistant Professors and Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) |
| Exam Mode | Computer Based Test (CBT) |
| Exam Type | National level |
| Language | English and Hindi |
The Admit card release date, exam dates and syllabus have also been released with the registration notification by NTA.
As per the announcement made on August 10, 2021, from the NTA, the UGC NET 2021 exam registration has been initiated on the same day of the notification. Along with this notification, the admit card and exam dates are also been announced. The exam will be conducted from 6th October 2021 to 11th October 2021. The exams for the December 2020 and June 2021 sessions are to be conducted on these same dates. The candidates must register for the UGC- NET before the allocated time to participate in the exam.
The candidates need not register again if they have registered for December 2020 session.
According to the NTA, the exam session from December 2020 and June 2021 had merged and summed up the slots. The finalized exam date has been notified and is from 6th October 2021 to 11th October 2021. The other critical dates are tabled below.
| Events of UGC NET 2021 | Dates | |
| Online Registration Opens at | 10.08.2021 (Tuesday) | |
| End date for submitting Online Registration | 05.09.2021 (Sunday) | |
| Payment of Application Fee | 10.08.2021 (Tuesday) | |
| Last date for payment | 06.09.2021 (Monday) | 180 minutes (3 hours) divided by paper 1 |
| Correction of Application Form | 7th September to 12th September | and paper 2 without any breaks in between. |
| Downloading of Admit Card | Last week of September 2021 | |
| Exam starting date | 06.10.2021 (Wednesday) | |
| Exam end date | 11.10.2021 (Monday) | |
| Exam Result Date | Yet to be announced |
The Exam will be Conducted in Two Shifts, the first and second shifts starts and ends from 9.00 am to 12.00 pm and 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm respectively.
The payment fee for the application is based on the Candidate’s category. The fee payment for UGC- NET can be done through credit card, debit card or e-challan. The paid registration amount is non-refundable. Candidates who pay through E-challan have to make the payment in the bank.
| Category | Exam Fee | Pay Through |
| General/ Unreserved Category | Rs 1000 per candidate | Online |
| OBC-NCL Category | Rs 500 per candidate | Online |
| SC/ ST/ PWBD / Transgender | Rs 250 per candidate | Online |
The GST and processing charges are to be paid with the registration fee by the candidate.
The NTA has designed the special eligibility criteria based on the Candidate’s Education, Category and Age factor. The candidates who fall under this criteria are eligible to apply for the UGC- NET examination.
The career options for UGC- NET qualified candidates are immense all over India as UGC- NET is not limited to only junior research fellowship and Assistant Professor post. You have multiple job options to apply with the Qualified UGC- NET result. The candidates shall also apply for jobs in PSUs which consider the score of UGC- NET for some job postings.
If a candidate got recruited as JRF in any university or Institution, this job also comes with promotions and other career options.
You can apply for these jobs if you had qualified UGC- NET for JRF.
You can apply for these jobs if you qualify UGC- NET exam for Assistant Professors.
The qualified candidates can also find new job opportunities in public sector undertakings such as ONGC, NPTC, EdCIL, etc. There are many government organization who recruits candidates with UGC- NET scorecard. The career option in these sectors for UGC- NET qualified candidates are
Even though you can apply for several jobs using UGC- NET scorecard, this exam mainly targets the candidate to get recruited for JRF and Assistant Professor jobs.
The salary for UGC- NET qualified aspirants may vary based on the institute they work in.
The UGC- NET has two different papers which are conducted online by National Testing Agency for 3hours. The NTA has published the syllabus for UGC- NET 2021 officially. The First paper which is also known as the general paper which focuses on testing the candidate’s ability on General awareness whereas the Second paper focuses on the selected subject by the candidates. The general and the specific subject Paper’s syllabus can be downloaded from the official website for the National Eligibility Test.
General Paper/ Paper- I consist of the following subjects
The second paper of UGC- NET has a total of 81 subjects. The candidates can select one subject to their interest. Each subject has its unique syllabus issued by the NTA which is published on this website. The number of subjects that candidates can select for UGC- NET is listed below
| NoSubject1.General Paper on Teaching & Research Aptitude (Paper -I)2.Economics / Rural Economics /Co-operation / Demography / Development Planning/ Development Studies/Econometrics/ Applied Economics/Development Eco./Business Economics3.Political Science4.Philosophy5.Psychology6.Sociology7.History8.Anthropology9.Commerce10.Education11.Social Work12.Defence and Strategic Studies13.Home Science14.Public Administration15Population Studies16Music17Management (including Business Admn. Mgt./Marketing/ Marketing Mgt./Industrial Relations and Personnel Mgt./ Personnel Mgt./Financial Mgt./Co-operative Management)18Adult Education/ Continuing Education/ Andragogy/ Non Formal Education.19Physical Education20Arab Culture and Islamic Studies21Indian Culture22Labour Welfare/Personnel Management/Industrial Relations/ Labour and Social Welfare/Human Resource Management23Law24Library and Information Science25Buddhist, Jaina, Gandhian and Peace Studies26Comparative Study of Religions27Mass Communication and Journalism28Performing Art – Dance/Drama/Theatre29Museology & Conservation30Archaeology31Criminology32Tribal and Regional Language/Literature33Folk Literature34Comparative Literature35Sanskrit traditional subjects (including) Jyotisha/Sidhanta Jyotish/ Navya Vyakarna/ Vyakarna/ Mimansa/ Navya Nyaya/ Sankhya Yoga/ Tulanatmaka Darsan/ Shukla Yajurveda/ Madhav Vedant/ Dharmasasta/ Sahitya/ Puranotihasa /Agama).36Women Studies37Visual Art (including Drawing & Painting/Sculpture Graphics/Applied Art/History of Art)38Geography39Social Medicine & Community Health40Forensic Science41Computer Science and Applications42Electronic Science43Environmental Sciences44Politics including International Relations/International Studies including Defence/Strategic Studies, West Asian Studies, South East Asian Studies, African Studies, South Asian Studies, Soviet Studies, American Studies.45Prakrit46Human Rights and Duties47Tourism Administration and Management. |
| 48 | Maithili |
| 49 | Bengali |
| 50 | Hindi |
| 51 | Kannada |
| 52 | Malayalam |
| 53 | Oriya |
| 54 | Punjabi |
| 55 | Sanskrit |
| 56 | Tamil |
| 57 | Telugu |
| 58 | Urdu |
| 59 | Arabic |
| 60 | English |
| 61 | Linguistics |
| 62 | Chinese |
| 63 | Dogri |
| 64 | Nepali |
| 65 | Manipuri |
| 66 | Assamese |
| 67 | Gujarati |
| 68 | Marathi |
| 69 | French (French Version) |
| 70 | French (English Version) |
| 71 | Spanish |
| 72 | Russian |
| 73 | Persian |
| 74 | Rajasthani |
| 75 | German |
| 76 | Japanese |
| 77 | BODO |
| 78 | Yoga |
| 79 | Sindhi |
| 80 | Pali |
| 81 | Kashmiri |
| 82 | Konkani |
The exam pattern for UGC -NET defines the time duration of the exam, the number of questions asked and further details. As we know, the UGC- NET is a Multiple choice question type examination which is a computer-based test (CBT) conducted online. The Exam pattern is Tabled below for easy understanding.
| Description | Details |
| Time Duration for Paper- I | 1 Hour (60 minutes) |
| Time Duration for Paper- II | 2 hours (120 minutes) |
| Interval between sessions | NO |
| Total number of Questions in General Paper | 50 questions |
| Total number of Questions in Paper- II | 100 questions |
| Maximum Marks in Paper- I | 100 marks |
| Maximum Marks in Paper-II | 200 marks |
| Marks for each Question | 2 marks |
| Negative mark for each Question | No negative marks |
| Sessions | Paper | Exam Time | Total marks |
| I | I | 9.00 AM to 10.00 AM | 300 marks |
| II | 10.00 AM to 12.00 PM | ||
| I | 2.30 PM to 3.30 PM | ||
| II | II | 3.30 PM to 5.30 PM |
The number of multiple-choice questions asked in the General paper is 5 questions per topic.
The release date of Admit Card has not been announced by the National Testing Agency yet. The possible release date of admit card for the UGC- NET exam will be at the last week of September 2021, a week before the exam. The admit card notification will be received at the website of UGC- NET. The candidate is asked to bring the hard copy of the Admit Card to the allocated exam centre compulsorily. The printed copy must be in the A4 sheet and the candidate must bring identity proof with the Admit Card.
Without the Admit Card and ID proof, the candidate will not be allowed to take the exam
ID proofs that can be brought to the UGC- NET 2021 Exam centre are,
The Result for UGC- NET exam will be released on the last week of October after the release of the Answer key one week prior. The publication of the result will be notified on the official website of UGC- NET by NTA. The mark sheet won’t be published by the NTA but you can download the softcopy of the result on the website.
Here are the steps you have to follow for checking and downloading the Result for UGC- NET 2021,
According to the University Grants Commission (UGC) instruction, the candidate has to obtain marks to the required cut off for 2021 to qualify for the NET exam.
Only 6% of the candidates have been selected from the total candidates who participated in the exam. Therefore, the competition between the candidates is huge. So the cut off marks are important to qualify the candidates. Each mark in the NET exam determines the qualification of the candidate. The University Grants Commission (UGC) defines the Cut- Off marks based on the Candidate’s category every year.
The Cut Off for the NET exam varies for each category. The minimum marks a candidate must score from a Reserved/ General category for a selection of JRF or Assistant professor post is 40% whereas the candidates from Unreserved/ OBC-NCL/ SC/ ST/Transgender/ PwD category have to score about 35% on both the papers combined.
The registration link has been published on August 10, 2021, on the official website of NTA. The Candidates are asked to register using the details and documents asked on the website.
The Registration day started on August 10, 2021.
The end date for registration is September 5, 2021.
The last date for correcting the registration form is September 7, 2021.
The NTA will open the time slot to correct mistakes in the registration form. It will be opened after the last day of registration.
The candidates can expect a minimum salary of Rs 30,000 for JRF posting on any institute of India and an amount of Rs 40,000 as the minimum salary for Assistant Professors who got selected through the NTA examination.
You can directly apply to any Institutes/ universities for JRF and Assistant Professor posting or through Job portal by UGC. Similarly, you can apply for jobs in public sectors and government organizations with the help of the NET Scorecard.
The UGC NET scorecard validates up to 3 years for JRF and possesses lifetime validation for Assistant professors.
Yes, you can select any subject of your interest for the UGC- NET exam. You will get a job posting regarding the subject you have selected.