Several candidates, who aspire to become primary school teachers, were standing outside the Centralised Admission Cell (CAC) on Monday instead of preparing for the Karnataka Teacher Eligibility Test (KARTET) scheduled for June 22.
The candidates were in for a shock earlier this week when they saw their admission tickets. For instance, Kakre Surekha Manohar from Bidar district, has opted to write the exam in Marathi medium, but was taken aback to learn that she had to take her first language paper in Kannada. “I do not know a single alphabet in Kannada. How can I take the entire exam in Kannada,” she asked standing helplessly outside the CAC.
Kothi Lingappa from Bellary, said, “I had opted to take my exams in Kannada. But when I saw the admission ticket, I was shocked to see that I have to write my exams in English. All my hopes of obtaining a teacher’s job rest on this exam. My entire family’s livelihood is dependent on this exam,” he said.
KARTET is being introduced to usher in national standards in teacher quality and recruitment process. Aspirants for the post of primary school teacher in the State, be it in government-run or private institutions, have to clear this exam.
To secure a KARTET certificate, which is valid for seven years, aspirants in general category have to obtain 60 per cent in the test while reserved category candidates should score 55 per cent.
Earlier, candidates had a tough time filling application forms online as the servers were slow.
Over 3.77 lakh candidates have applied. They will take the test either in Paper 1 or Paper 2, which have different sections, or both. While it is mandatory for candidates who want to teach class one to five to write Paper 1, those who want to teach between classes six to eight have to appear for Paper 2.
Sources in the education department said that the entire confusion was created as initially there was an option to take the exam in either Kannada or English medium.
Later, the government approved a proposal to take the test in four more mediums for paper 1 – Urdu, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi. For paper 2, the government approved a proposal to take the test in five more mediums, including Hindi.
