The two-day Teacher’s Eligibility Test (TET) got off to a rocky start on Saturday with many complaining about difficulty quotient in Paper 1. Clearing TET is a must for teaching in government schools from 1st to 5th grade.
Most of the candidates pointed out that Tamil was especially tough. “Tamil, especially the grammar part, was very tough this year. It has never been this difficult before,” said Velvizhi Sudarshan, who has been attempting the exam for the last three years.
While a number of candidates found the maths paper tougher than the previous years, others disagreed. Psychology, Science, English and Environmental Science met with similar response.
Experienced teachers alleged that the examination was skewed in favour of young inexperienced candidates. “Only those who are fresh out of their training period will be able to pass the examinations. There were no direct questions. For people like us who completed our formal studies years ago, such twisted questions are extremely difficult. This is in spite of the fact that I handle classes XI and XII in the school where I am teaching now. Our teaching experience has been reduced to zilch and only book knowledge is looked at in the examination,” griped P Kirubhavathi, who has been attempting the examination for the third time.
According to the Teacher’s Recruitment Board, a total of 2,68,429 attempted the examination in the State. In Chennai alone there were 8,652 candidates - over 95 per cent attendance with 405 absentees.