New Delhi, June 15: Aspiring college teachers are up in arms against the University Grants Commission for changing the qualification criteria for the National Eligibility Test and suspending the exam that would have been held in the middle of this year in the normal course.

Dozens of students today demonstrated in front of the office of the higher education regulator, protesting the changes in the qualification norms and the move to hold the NET just once a year.

The exam has been held twice a year since it was started in 1984. Those who qualify become eligible for teaching jobs in universities and colleges subject to final selection through interviews. The top 8,000 are granted junior research fellowships.

The UGC had recently decided to change the NET qualifying norms, moving to a six per cent formula from the top 15 per cent it has followed all these years.

According to the earlier system, the top 15 per cent who got the minimum required marks in each of the three papers were declared qualified.

The 15 per cent was not calculated on the total number of candidates who had appeared for the test. The UGC applied the 15 per cent criterion to each category of students - general, Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe - and to each subject.

The minimum qualifying scores for general category students were 40 in papers 1 and 2 and 50 in paper 3, and 35, 35 and 40 for SC/ST and OBC candidates. Nearly two lakh of the five lakh candidates who normally appear every year would get the minimum marks.

UGC sources said the regulator recently decided to put the top six per cent of the total candidates who sat for the test on the NET merit list, provided they had all obtained the minimum marks required in each paper.

Not only that, under the changed norms, a general category candidate has to score 40 per cent in the aggregate while an SC/ST/OBC candidate has to secure 35 per cent.

A UGC official said the commission would apply the government's reservation policy of 27 per cent for OBCs, 15 per cent for SCs and 7.5 per cent for STs on the top six per cent to declare candidates NET-qualified.

A possibility, however, remains that there may not be enough candidates on the merit list to fill the 15 per cent reservation for SCs and 7.5 per cent for STs. When asked about this possibility, a UGC official had no clear answer on how to deal with such a situation.

Prashant Mukherjee, secretary of the CPM's student wing SFI, said SC/ST candidates could be affected by the changes. "The UGC must explain why it is tinkering with the present system," he said.

Students also criticised the UGC for suspending the NET exam for mid-2017. "The NET is not conducted to give employment. It is an eligibility test. Holding it once a year will increase pressure on students," said Ananya De, a protesting student who was preparing to take the exam this summer. "The way the CBSE suspended the test without any prior notice amounts to cheating students."

The Central Board of Secondary Education, which has been holding the test since 2014, had last week notified that the NET would be held in November. Its chairman, Rajesh Kumar Chaturvedi, has written to the HRD ministry saying it can hold the test just once a year because of heavy workload.

Students have submitted a memorandum to UGC secretary J.S. Sandhu. The SFI and the All India Students Association said they would hold protests across the country and mobilise other organisations.