NTA Announces September Re-Test for Three UGC-NET Papers After Errors Found
The National Testing Agency (NTA) has announced the re-conduct of the UGC-NET June 2026 examination for three subjects, English, Commerce, and Sociology, following complaints about multiple errors in the question papers. The decision was conveyed through a public notice dated 16 August 2026.
The original UGC-NET June 2026 examination was held from 22 to 30 June 2026 across 87 subjects. It determines eligibility for the award of Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), for appointment as Assistant Professor, and for admission to PhD programmes.
Why the Re-Test?
NTA received several complaints regarding errors in the English, Commerce, and Sociology papers. It constituted a committee to examine the issues. The committee found that the three papers contained many factual, typographical, and translation errors. These included misspelt names of prominent scholars, garbled book titles, errors in the stem wording of questions, grammatical errors, gender and number agreement errors, punctuation mistakes, and non-standard coined terms for established concepts. A significant number of questions previously administered were also repeated.
The committee recommended re-conducting the papers to ensure a fair and error-free examination. NTA concluded that papers with such defects do not meet the required standards of fairness and that the extent of the problems could not be adequately addressed merely by dropping questions under the answer-key challenge process.
Re-Examination Schedule
The re-tests will be held as follows:
- English: 9 September 2026, Shift 1 (9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon)
- Commerce: 9 September 2026, Shift 2 (3:00 PM to 6:00 PM)
- Sociology: 10 September 2026, Shift 1 (9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon)
No additional examination fee will be charged from candidates of these three subjects. Details regarding examination cities, centres, and admit cards will be notified separately on the official websites (nta.ac.in and ugcnet.nta.nic.in).
Impact on Other Subjects and Results
Results for the remaining 84 subjects (for which the provisional answer-key challenge process was opened on 16 August 2026) will be declared as per the existing schedule. Allocation of JRF seats and issuance of e-certificates for eligibility for Assistant Professor and for admission to PhD programmes in these 84 subjects will not be delayed because of the re-conduct of the three papers.
For the three affected subjects, the number of candidates eligible for appointment as Assistant Professor shall be equal to 6% of the candidates who appeared in the June 2026 test or the re-test, whichever is higher. Subject-wise allocation for JRF, eligibility for Assistant Professor, and eligibility for admission to PhD will follow the provisions of the Information Bulletin. After the re-test, the numbers already allocated for each subject will not be reduced under any circumstances.
Official Advice
NTA has reiterated its commitment to conducting examinations that are fair, accurate, and transparent. Candidates are advised to rely only on official NTA websites and communications for updates.
