KOCHI: Language teachers are irked over the frequent bloomers appearing in the national eligibility test (NET) being conducted by the university grants commission (UGC). The commission is yet to decide on returning to the old system of having at least one descriptive question paper related to the subject, though it had received many complaints in this regard.

Even retired Sanskrit, Malayalam and English professors find it difficult to answer more than 20% of the objective paper. "If you don't evaluate the candidates well, these are the people who will enter colleges as teachers, which in turn will affect the quality of education as a whole. I have been teaching English to students preparing for the NET for the past eight years. Since June 2012, when UGC decided to make paper-III of the subject an objective one, students have been marking answers by fluke and not out of knowledge. Since there is no negative marking, candidates attempt questions without knowing the answers," says A R Vijayaraghavan, former head of the department of English, government college, Thrissur.

"The holding of the NET in recent days has raised doubts in the minds of scholars who closely observe the question papers. The third paper of the NET till 2011 was descriptive and as a result, the competence of the candidates, especially in the faculty of languages, could be determined to some extent. But from 2012, the third paper has also become objective. I suspect this nullifies the possibility to verify the standard and competence of a language teacher, who is only required to select a letter from the bunch of A, B, C & D," G Gangadharan Nair, former head of the department of Vyakarana, Sree Sankara University, Kalady, says in a letter to the UGC chairman.
"Can a candidate who has not written a single sentence in his/her language of specialization be given a certification that qualifies for a university/college job," asks Ramakumaran Thampuran, former professor, Maharaja's College. "There was a question in June 2013 in the Sanskrit paper, which asked about the commentaries on the Manusmriti, and four numbers were given as options. However, ancient texts like Manusmriti has several unpublished interpretations still in manuscript form. Knowing the exact number of interpretations is next to impossible. Moreover, this is only a statistical curiosity, not at all relevant from the point of view of traditional scholarship in Sanskrit," he says.

Such bloomers were seen in English and Malayalam papers too, as recent as December 29. Despite representations, scholars say that there is still no response and this can even lead to a fresh round of litigations.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/Academics-irked-over-...