CTET to be conducted in all 20 languages: HRD

The Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) aspirants will continue to have an option to choose any two of the 20 scheduled languages including Kannada and Urdu for the compulsory language papers.

The Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar has “ordered” the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to conduct the nationwide test offering “all 20 Indian languages” to enable aspirants make their choice of languages for the compulsory papers in the examination.

This came after the CBSE restricted the CTET aspirants to choose any of the two Indian languages for the compulsory papers from a list of just three languages—Hindi, English and Sanskrit for the compulsory papers, notifying the schedule for this year's test recently.

The board, which conducted the last CTET in 20 Indian languages, quietly removed the other 17 Indian languages from the list for the test to be conducted later this year, drawing a flak from some of the regional parties including Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu and candidates from different parts of the country.

“I have ordered the CBSE to conduct the test in all 20 Indian languages from next year as it was being done earlier,” Javadekar told reporters here at a press conference.

The CBSE is set to conduct the 11th edition of the CTET on September 16 in 92 cities across the country after a gap of two years. The board held the last CTET in 2016.

“The decision to drop Tamil & 16 other regional languages from Central Teacher Eligibility Test is highly condemnable and strikes at the root of federalism. Students of CBSE whose mother tongue is Tamil will be put to a great disadvantage without teachers,” Kanimozhi, DMK's Rajya Sabha MP had tweeted.

Citing reasons for the dropping of the 17 languages, Javadekar later told reporters that the board did so in wake of court order that wanted the CBSE to complete the examination process for the CTET in four months.

“The CBSE decided to drop 17 languages to complete the entire examination process (from registration to declaration of results) in four months. If the test is conducted in 20 languages, it would have taken a little more time (more than four months) to complete the process. But, I directed the CBSE to conduct the test in 20 languages because people want it,” he maintained.

A fresh notification will be issued by the CBSE in this regard, he added.