Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The agencies being considered by the School Education Department to conduct the offline Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) are reluctant to take responsibility for the offline examination, citing the risk involved in managing the test.
Officials fear that even a minor problem during the examination could trigger protests by teachers.
The School Education Department is yet to finalise the agency that will conduct the offline TET.
After Chief Minister Mohan Yadav announced on Teachers' Day that the examination would also be conducted in offline mode, the Madhya Pradesh Employees Selection Board (MPESB) has backed off from taking responsibility for the offline test.
Discussions are currently underway between the MPESB and the Directorate of Public Instruction (DPI).
The DPI will prepare a proposal on the examination arrangement and place it before the government. The final decision on the agency is likely to be taken after Chief Minister Yadav returns from his Dubai visit.
MPBSE not ready to conduct offline exam
The department is now considering handing over the responsibility to the MP Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) or the Madhya Pradesh State Open School (MPSOS).
However, the MPBSE is also reluctant to conduct the examination in offline mode, with officials citing the risks associated with managing a large-scale paper-based examination and saying it is not their domain as they have never conducted such an examination.
A meeting will be held in the presence of school education secretary Sanjay Goyal between the MPBSE secretary and the commissioner of public instruction, after which a decision is expected to be taken on whether the board can conduct the examination.
MPSOS ready for online TET
Meanwhile, MPSOS has agreed to conduct the examination in online mode. Sources said that since MPSOS functions under the DPI, involving it could make the process more streamlined, without the need for another external agency.
Application deadline extended to Sept 18
The examination was originally scheduled to begin from Oct 12. The application process started on Aug 21, with the original last date being Sept 4.
Due to the low number of applications, the deadline has now been extended to Sept 18, while corrections can be made until Sept 20.
As of the original deadline, only around 7,500 teachers had filled the TET form, against an expected pool of around 1.5 lakh teachers.
