English paper errors hit teacher test aspirants

Candidates who wrote the Teachers’ Eligibility Test have now asked the government to reconduct the ‘Language English’ exam, citing several discrepancies.

The candidates from across the state took the exam last week for English. While a few of them complained that there were doubts with the questions, the others said there was no clarity on the number of marks assigned per question.

“When candidates got the question papers, they were in for a shock. They did not know whether the answers were to be descriptive or have simple answers. None of the questions in the paper had marks allocated against it,” said Tholi, president of the association of aspirants.

The 150-marks paper is for teachers to be recruited in government primary schools in classes six to eight. The question paper has 50 multiple choice questions and 34 descriptive questions for 150 marks. Candidates complained that no break-up was given for this.

“This is for filling up vacancies of English teachers. When we contacted the department’s officials, one of them said that being teachers, we must be able to gauge the number of marks for a particular question. How is an applicant expected to do guesswork?” said a member of the Vidyarthi Bandhutva Vedike.

There are 4,655 vacancies for English teachers in primary schools. Some teachers claimed that the questions were too tough. “These were not primary school level questions,” said another
candidate.

The aspirants said that they would seek an appointment with Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, who is also the minister for primary and secondary education.

“We will give representations to the principal secretary as well and await his response. We will meet the chief minister and push for a re-exam,” said Tholi.