Aspirants to assistant professor posts in government colleges are demanding mandatory written test for all applicants, including those who have Ph.Ds.
The NET, SET Association has demanded that “the comprehensive knowledge of each candidate” must be tested to assess their abilities. The association told reporters on Sunday that it was for total transparency in recruitment, demanding that universities upload on their websites the criteria for shortlisting candidates, their qualification, experience and marks awarded. It pointed to the Teachers Recruitment Board fiasco, which led to a prolonged court battle.
The association members urged the Mother Teresa University for Women to upload the NET,SET question papers for the last three years, the details of the successful candidates along with subject-wise marks and cut-off scores.
This year after the association demanded the candidates were provided the question papers. But their demand for a carbon copy of Optical Mark Recognition sheets were ignored. The association members said they have no clue whether the candidates who have qualified deserved the marks they had been awarded. The association members sought the university to follow the UGC’s example and publish the list of qualified NET candidates along with their marks on its website.
“Equal weightage should be given to Ph.D and NET, SET candidates and the government’s roster system must be followed,” said S. Swaminathan, association adviser.
“The university has conducted the exam for three years now but ever since the practice of publishing the results in newspapers was abandoned the details of how many candidates had passed the test is not known even to applicants, ” Mr. Swaminathan said.
Librarian vacancies
Candidates with library science degree said though the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission advertised for 40 posts of librarians, including a backlog of nine posts, the test was ‘temporarily postponed’ four days ahead of the test.
“We understand that it was done to accommodate the excess staff from Annamalai University. We want the government to frame the upper age limit for applicants for the post as is being done for other exams,” said S. Manikandan, a library science graduate and vice-president of the association.
