While a few found the papers easy, most of the teachers and teacher aspirants said that the 90-minutes time given was not enough to answer all the 150 multiple choice questions.
S. Malathi, who took paper I which is for recruitment of teachers from Standards I to V said: “Mathematics questions were tough. Most of the questions were not from the syllabus prescribed.”
Whereas many others said that paper 1 was difficult and the Maths questions turned out to be the toughest. Arul Prakash and D. Kanagaraj, said that almost all the 30 questions in maths were sums which were time-consuming. Many candidates complained that the questions were of higher-level than that was provided in model question papers.
A few candidates found Tamil and English difficult while a majority found Child Development and Pedagogy and Environmental Studies easy. U. Neethu, teacher at a private matriculation school in the city, who appeared for paper II which was to recruit teacher for Standards VI to VIII, said that the question paper was different from the model provides by TRB. “We were asked to prepare from textbooks of Standards VI to VIII, but only a few question came from that.”
P. Nandini found Tamil from paper II difficult apart from mathematics.
“Many questions needed time to think and only half-a-second was available to answer a question,” she said. As many as 9,830 candidates appeared for paper I in Coimbatore and Pollachi education districts while 13,887 appeared for paper II. Out of the 10,798 candidates who were issued hall tickets, 968 did not take the test for paper 1 while 1,57 out of the 15,044 applied did not appear for paper II.
According to R. Balakrishnan, State Advisor, Tamil Nadu Head High and Higher Secondary School Head Masters’ Association, the question paper tested the knowledge and thinking ability of the candidates and was modelled to screen people who were not competent enough to teach.
Majority of the candidates who took the test were fresh graduates as the TRB had announced that teachers appointed prior to 23.8.2010 do not have to take the test.
The candidates said that it would be unfair to make recruitments based on the examination as those who had prepared well could not do well because most of the questions were of higher-level than the guidelines given.
