COIMBATORE: The State Level Eligibility Test (SLET) for assistant professorship is likely to be held at the end of January or the beginning of February next year, after a gap of three years.
A team of UGC officials has given in-principle approval for it, after visiting the Mother Teresa Women’s University in Kodaikanal.
The last SLET test was conducted by the Bharathiar University on October 7, 2012 and its results announced in February. Of the 51,699 candidates who appeared then, 5,495 passed.
The State government has now appointed the Mother Teresa Women’s University as a nodal agency for the test. A steering committee and a moderation committee have been formed to conduct it, with Higher Education Secretary Apoorva as chairperson and university Registrar N Kala as member secretary.
“The UGC team inspected the university and submitted a favourable report. We have received the UGC’s permission orally. We expect to get the official communication in December, after the report is placed before a meeting of the commission,” Registrar N Kala told Express on Thursday.
“The notification to conduct SLET will be issued then. Hopefully, it will be held at the end of January or the beginning of February. We expect one lakh candidates and to have 100 centres,” she added.
“Tight security arrangements are being made to distribute question papers and collect OMR sheets. We will have a separate building and dedicated staff for the SLET,” she said.
However, S Swaminathan, founder secretary of the NET/SLET Association questioned the need for conducting it. “Already, there are more candidates who have passed SLET than necessary for Assistant Professorship.”