National Eligibility Test (NET) examination which was conducted in Kohima on Sunday has drawn flak from the candidates over the “unorganized” conduct of the examination.
NET which was held across many centers in the country is an eligibility criteria for lectureship in most of the institutions, especially government sponsored institutions.
In Nagaland it was conducted at Mt. Olive College Kohima where more than 400 enthusiastic candidates sat for the exam.
The anxious candidates started murmuring when the exam started behind the scheduled time though none of the candidates dared to raise questions for the unknown delay.
When the exam commenced, the candidates in many of the halls were not informed whether the time would be extended to compensate the delay.
The candidates again had to accept the situation when the invigilators who were already distributing the booklets half way, recalled the booklets stating that they were not distributed correctly.
Following these delays, the one and half hour break which the candidates were supposed to get during the three session exam was reduced to half an hour.
This action disappointed the candidates who had planned to revise some points during the break.
“The exam was unorganized” said a candidate adding that the invigilators themselves were confused over the booklet distribution. The candidate felt the confusion among the invigilators had created a negative image of the highly competitive national examination.
Another candidate who teaches at a higher secondary school in Dimapur said, “they should be serious. They have not done their homework properly”. He felt that the delay over the exams which finished at 4:30 pm also had its effect in the form of uncertain transportation, especially on Sunday for those outstation candidates who had to go back to their homes.
A woman invigilator said that they were not given proper instructions or manuals in advance for the conduct of the exam.
When contacted, the Superintendent of NET exam June 2008, Dr. D. Kuolie attributed the delay to the disproportionate ratio of the candidates and the invigilators. Out of the 708 applicants 427 of them sat for the exam as against 35 invigilators, he informed.
According to Dr. Kuolie, many of the invigilators were new which resulted in disorder during booklet distribution. He admitted a delay of about 15 minutes and 20 minutes respectively for the first and second session of the exam. He however said the students were compensated with an equal time to write their exam.
Interestingly, those who appeared for today’s exam were mostly teachers either in higher secondary schools or colleges.