Time management was challenging for candidates who took the State Level Eligibility Test on Sunday.
This year’s SLET, mandatory for appointment as assistant professors in higher education institutions, was conducted by the Mother Theresa Women’s University and a total of 44,000 candidates had applied for it.
Candidates had to take two tests, including one that tested their general knowledge and another that tested their proficiency in their chosen subject.
The first paper was for an hour and had 50 questions and the second paper was for two hours with 100 questions.
Though candidates largely managed to do well in the subject papers they found the GK paper tough as there were questions from the Indian Constitution that they had not anticipated.
“There is a separate syllabus for GK and large portions such as teaching aptitude, research methodology and communication were not covered I felt. There was more focus on maths and I found it difficult. But my subject, library science was easy,” said K. Kumar, a candidate who took the exam in Chennai.
S. Swaminathan, advisor to NET/SLET Association which has been demanding reforms in the way the exam is conducted, said that the University had provided the question papers this year, conceding to their demand. The demand that the carbon copy of the OMR sheets be given to the candidates was not acceded to.
“Though the university has conducted the exam for two years now, it has not released the details of how many candidates had passed the test. Earlier the results would be published in a Tamil daily. That practice has also been discontinued,” Mr. Swaminathan said.
“The University Grants Commission publishes the list of qualified NET candidates on its website. We want the OMR sheets of all candidates to be posted on the net,” he demanded.
