Bengaluru: Thousands of candidates, who appeared for the University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) Kannada paper on Sunday in Karnataka were in for a shock as  90 percent of the questions were in Hindi and only a few were in Kannada.

The NET is conducted to assess eligibility for Assistant Professorship, Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), teaching at Under-Graduate Colleges and Universities and to qualify for research studies. The test which was conducted on Sunday was in Computer Based Test (CBT) mode.

Candidates who logged in to write the Kannada exam were shocked to find that 90 questions out of 100 were in Hindi, leading to much confusion. At many centres, the students staged a protest outside the examination centre. In many exam halls, there was chaos as the invigilators tried to reload and refresh the questions of the Kannada subject but were shocked to see only Hindi questions in the Kannada subject.

The issue went viral on social media and forced National Testing Agency (NTA) to issue a public notice postponing the test.

A candidate, who appeared for the UGC-NET Kannada subject paper on Sunday in Bengaluru, said, “The first paper, which was for 50 marks, was normal. But the second paper carrying 100 marks, most questions were in Hindi. I could attempt only 10 questions and did not even understand the remaining 90 questions.”

Meanwhile, a public notice by NTA at 5 pm stated, “Due to technical issues at some of the centres of UGC-NET December 2020 and June 2021 cycle examination, Subject Kannada held on Dec. 26 (Shift 1) in CBT mode, the scheduled exam could not be conducted. NTA has decided to reschedule the examination of impacted candidates. The revised date for the rescheduled examination will be uploaded shortly along with the revised admit card for these candidates.” The notice advised the candidates to regularly visit the NTA website for the latest updates regarding the examination.