The National Talent Search (NTS) Examination is being conducted for the students currently reading in Class X from any recognised school of the State. The exam is conducted in two stages i.e. Stage- I and Stage- II is conducted by DERT, Shillong in the month of November every year and the date is notified by NCERT, New Delhi. The State II Examination is conducted by NCERT, New Delhi tentatively in the month of May every year.

The purpose of the scheme is to identify talented students and nurture them.

The NTSS Quota as per NCERT is 25 candidates who can appear for stage II Examination at the National Level.

Process of conducting NTS Examination

• Advertisement is given in the Local Newspaper in the last week of July every year (English, Khasi and Garo) regarding the examination.
• The DSEO’s of the state are responsible for popularising and enrol the candidates to appear for the exam.
• DERT act as a Nodal Agency in conducting the Examination and DSEO’s conduct the examination at the respective Districts.
• Only those Candidates who scored 55% (50% for ST/SC) marks in Class IX promotion examination are eligible to appear NTS Examination.

Procedure for Selection

• The Examination is conducted by DERT through DSEO’s in the month of November every year in all the District Head-Quarter for selection of students.
• The result is declared in the month of December-January. The names of Candidates of the qualified top 25 candidates will be sent to NCERT, New Delhi for appearing the stage-II (National Level) Examination conducted by NCERT.
• Candidates who qualify the examination at the National Level are then selected by NCERT for the award of Scholarship.
• Reservation- 15% for students belonging to SC category, 7.5% for students belonging to ST category and 3% for Physically Challenged Group of students.
• Qualifying marks for candidates from General Category is 40% in each paper and Candidates from SC,ST, PH is 32% in each paper.

Scholarship

On the basis of stage-II Examination, the scholarship will be awarded as under:

• Scholarship of Rs. 1,250/- per month for successful students for class XI and XII.
• Scholarship of Rs. 2,000/- per month for successful students as per (a) above for Under Graduates and Post-Graduates.
• Amount of Scholarship for Ph.D be fixed in accordance with UGC norms.

The Stage-I Examination consist of the following three tests

1. Mental Ability Test: These consists 50 multiple-choice questions testing verbal and non-verbal meta-cognitive abilities like reasoning and critical thinking. The questions in the test may be on analogy, classification, numerical series, pattern perceptions, hidden figures, etc.
2. Language Comprehensive Test: Language Comprehensive Test was introduced from the year 2013-14. This test consists of 50 multiple-choice questions testing language comprehension, reasoning, critical thinking, recognition of jumble sentences, grammatical knowledge.
3. Scholastic Aptitude Test: This consist of 90 multiple-choice questions covering subjects, namely, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History Geography, Civics, Economics& Mathematics.

Performance of the Class X Students of Meghalaya at the National Talent Search (National Level) Examination since 2008-2009

Year	No. of students Appeared	No. Selected students for National Level Examination				No. Selected for interview			No. of Awarded
		General	ST	SC	Total	General	ST	Total	General	ST	Total
2006-2007	274	4	21	-	25	0	2	2	0	2	2
2007-2008	290	4	21	-	25	0	1	1	0	1	1
2008-2009	497	4	21	-	25	0	0	0	0	0	0
2010-2011	426	4	21	-	25	0	0	0	0	0	0
2011-2012	299	4	21	-	25	0	1	1	0	1	1
2012-2013	474	4	21	-	25	1	1	2	1	1	2
2013-2014	280	5	19	1	25	0	0	0	0	0	0
2014-2015	447	4	21	-	25	0	0	0	0	0	0
2015-2016	574	4	21	-	25
2016-2017	720	6	19	-	25	National Level Examination will be held on 14TH May 2017