The state primary education board has published the results of the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) on Monday to appoint teachers at the primary level (Classes I to V).
The results were published after the board had in August last year posted model answers and invited challenges from the examinees to ensure transparency in the recruitment and avoid legal tangles.
Manik Bhattacharya, the president of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education, said 9,896 candidates of around 2.5 lakh had cracked the test and would be asked to appear for interviews once the school education department issued a notification about the vacancy figures. The candidates have to put their date of birth and nine-digit roll numbers on the following websites - www.wbbpe.org and https://wbbprimaryeducation.org to know their results.
The examination was conducted on January 31 last year. The board, after uploading the model answers and going through the challenges, uploaded the correct answer key on September 16.
After scanning over 3,000 responses, board-appointed experts changed the answers of six questions and uploaded the final answers, based on which the scripts were evaluated, said board president Bhattacharya.
“When the board conducted the tests in 2012 and 2014, candidates dissatisfied with the evaluation challenged the recruitment process in court, leading to an inordinate delay. This time we wanted to avoid the legal hassles...,” Bhattacharya told The Telegraph.
A study of the model answer key and the correct answer key reveals that of the 11 subjects, two answers each in English-II, child development and pedagogy and environmental science were corrected. A board official said their experts went through the answers and found the logic cited by the respondents for these questions correct.
A photocopy of the question booklet and that of the OMR (optical mark recognition) sheet containing the answers has been uploaded on www.wbbpe.org. The practice of uploading model answers and seeking responses is being followed in engineering and medical entrance exams over the past few years.
The practice was introduced at the primary recruitment level following allegations of lack of transparency in the recruitment exercise, said an official of the school education department. “Now, even if someone moves court, we can place the transparent process that was followed....”
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had in June advised the board to publish the results before Puja. A board official said they took time to publish so that the results could be error-free.