SSC Teacher Recruitment: The West Bengal School Service Commission has advised the State Education Department that for the sake of transparency in the recruitment process, the selection of assistant teachers in government-aided secondary and higher secondary schools will be held on MCQ questions and not subject-based questions.
The commission said that copies of OMR sheets containing MCQs (90 marks) will be handed over to the candidates after the recruitment examination.
In the draft rules sent to the SSC earlier, the education department had advised SSC to take a written test of subject-wise questions for 300 marks.
The commission has argued that holding the test on subjective questions could raise legal challenges, as job aspirants could go to court to question the assessment or file an application under the Right to Information Act.
An official said, “The advantage of MCQs is that once the OMR sheets are handed over to the candidates after the exam, they can check for themselves the marks they will get immediately after uploading the model answers. This will reduce unnecessary legal challenges. Model answers are uploaded before the result is published. Moreover, it will be difficult to provide copies of answer scripts to candidates in case of 300 marks subject-wise examination due to the number of pages.”
SSC Court said that taking MCQ exam using OMR sheet can result in quick release.
SSC conducts state level selection tests to select job candidates for the recruitment of teachers in secondary and higher secondary schools.
Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) is conducted to select candidates for primary and upper primary schools. An SSC official said: "For more than two years we have been discussing changes in the TET system."
School recruitment has stopped in recent years due to litigation after allegations of irregularities in the assessment of answer scripts.
SSC Karta said, “We cannot deny that the credibility of exam conducting bodies like SSC and Primary Boards has been eroded in recent years following allegations of irregularities. The best way to restore credibility is to conduct OMR-based assessment and give copies of answer scripts to candidates.”
The State Board of Primary Education has issued copies of TET answer scripts to candidates appearing for the December 2022 and 2023 examinations. However, the SSC Chairperson refused to comment on the matter.
