Overburdened CBSE decides to hold central teacher eligibility test once a year

Central Board of Secondary Education has decided to hold the appointment eligibility examination for class I-VIII teachers or CTET just once a year instead of the current practice of conducting it twice.

Overburdened with the responsibility of conducting multiple exams, CBSE recently proposed HRD Ministry doing away with the practice of conducting the National Eligibility Test (NET), for recruitment of assistant professors, twice a year.

The Board also conducts the JEE-Main and the NEET for under-graduate engineering and medical courses respectively, apart from SSC and SC school examinations for schools across India. 

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“When all major competitive exams are conducted once a year, why Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) or NET should be conducted twice? They are massive-scale exercises which require massive resources and in a way reduce seriousness of candidates since the fear of wasting a year isn’t there,” a senior official told PTI.

Following consultations with officials from the CBSE, the HRD Ministry and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), it has been decided that CTET should be conducted only once, the official added.

At present, the exam is conducted twice every year—February and September—and approximately nine lakh applicants appear for it annually.It has, however, not been decided yet as to in which month the exam will be conducted now.

“The arrangement of the CBSE conducting NET and CTET is likely to continue till the proposed National Testing Service (NTS) is set up by the government for the conduct of all exams,” the official said.

Proposed by the HRD Ministry, the NTS will be set up as an independent body dedicated to conducting entrance tests for higher education.

“The proposal of conducting NET once is in a very nascent stage. No decision has been reached on it yet,” he added.

(With Inputs from PTI)

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