Education board postpones ETT exams two days before scheduled date; 40,000 students have harrowing time

Education board postpones ETT exams two days before scheduled date
40,000 students have harrowing time
Archit Watts
Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 15
Over 40,000 students of the first year of the Elementary Teachers Training (ETT) course, a majority of them girls belonging to neighbouring Punjab and Haryana, are facing a harrowing time here. Reason: The J&K State Board of School Education, which conducts the exam of the two-year course, two days ago rescheduled the exams that were scheduled to commence today.

Earlier, the board had announced that the exams would start today (April 15), but when students started reaching here, it rescheduled the date sheet and announced that the exams would be conducted from April 20 to May 5.

Though the officials concerned said the exams had been postponed due to the ongoing panchayat elections, the students, who had come here travelling long distances from Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, to appear in the exams had a harrowing time.

Investigations by The Tribune revealed that the education board had enrolled 6,000 students of private colleges just two days before the exams, thus delaying the entire examination process. Earlier, there were 36,145 students enrolled for the ETT exams, but due to the fresh enrolment the number of students crossed 42,000 mark.

Board sources disclosed that it had failed to arrange an adequate number of examination halls/centres, thus delaying the examination process. However, Sheikh Bashir Ahmed, Joint Secretary of the education board, terming it as unfortunate, said, “We have rescheduled the exams due to the panchayat elections, as teachers are deputed on election duty”.

On the contrary, Deep Singh, president of the Jammu Private Schools and ETT Institutes Association, said, “There is a nexus between the education board officials and some private colleges and they lure students from the neighbouring states into taking admission to the course for a hefty amount. These students are called to the colleges only to appear in the exams and otherwise they do not visit the colleges”.

He added, “As many as 99 per cent of the ETT students enrolled in the state belong to other states. What does it mean? It is self explanatory”. Deep Singh lashed out at the board officials saying, “The board has been headless for the last six months. The present joint secretary of the board has become all in all, but he is doing nothing”.

Government records procured by The Tribune revealed another shortcoming on the part of the education board. As per these documents, there are 439 ETT colleges across the state and 95 of them have no student. An official of the board alleged that the whole process of the ETT exams was dubious, as there was no criterion for getting admission to the course. “Nearly 100 institutes are running from fake addresses. Besides, 150 institutes are not even equipped with basic infrastructure,” he added.

Sheikh Bashir Ahmed, joint secretary of the education board, said they had received some complaints in this regard, but they could not take any action. This course has always remained the top priority of the students from the neighbouring states, because it is valid in other states also for getting government jobs.

Last year, a question paper of Class XII, which is conducted by the board, was leaked through SMS. Besides, a large number of mass copying cases were also reported throughout the state. However, no major action had been taken in this regard as yet.