18.22 lakh overcome Covid-19 fear to appear in UPTET-2021
Barring a few complaints by candidates who were not allowed to appear in the exam without admit card or who arrived late, Uttar Pradesh Teacher Eligibility Test (UPTET)-2021 went off smoothly on Sunday
Barring a few complaints by candidates who were not allowed to appear in the exam without admit card or who arrived late, Uttar Pradesh Teacher Eligibility Test (UPTET)-2021 went off smoothly on Sunday. UPTET-2021 was earlier cancelled on November 28, 2021, due to a paper leak forcing the exam to be rescheduled for January 23.
The exam was conducted by the Exam Regulatory Authority (ERA), Prayagraj, in association with the district administrations, across the state.
No untoward incident was reported during both the shifts of the exams, an official said.
Even though UPTET was held amid the third wave of Covid-19, out of the total registered 21,65,179 candidates, 18,22,112, amounting to 84.15%, appeared in the exam in the two shifts, informed ERA secretary Anil Bhushan Chaturvedi.
With personnel of the UP Special Task Force (STF), Local Intelligence Units (LIUs) and district police keeping a strict watch, the examination was conducted in two shifts— 10 am to 12.30 pm for primary level teachers and 2.30 pm to 5 pm for upper primary level teachers.
Social media posts claiming paper leak misleading
Chaturvedi said some misleading posts on social media claimed paper leak in the first shift (primary level) of the exam. However, when the alleged leaked questions were compared with the actual question papers, they were found to be completely fake.
“Police is now acting against people responsible for such posts,” he added.
A total of 21,65,179 candidates, including 12,91,627 for the primary level and 8,73,552 for the upper primary level, were registered for the UPTET-2021. For the primary level, a total of 2,532 examination centres, and for the upper primary level, a total of 1,733 examination centres, were set up across the state.
For the primary level, a total of 10,73,302 candidates (83.09%) appeared in the exam in the state. Likewise, for the upper primary level, a total of 7,48,810 (85.72%) appeared. For the exam, 1,62,511 invigilators, 8530 observers, 1423 flying squads, besides 5,814 class-3 and 14,059 class-4 workers, were pressed into service.
In Lucknow, the UPTET exam was conducted at 99 centres. In the morning shift, 39,583 (83.5%) appeared for the exam, while 7766 were absent.
In the afternoon shift, 33,255 were slated to appear for the exam, out of which 28,596 (85.9%) candidates appeared, while 5659 were absent, said Amar Kant Singh, district inspector of schools, Lucknow.
Uproar at a few centres
There was an uproar in the first shift of the exam at TD Girls Inter College, Gomti Nagar and Bright Inter College, Thakurganj, as well as at a few other examination centres. A few of the candidates accused the administration of depriving them of an opportunity to take the examination. There were more than two dozen candidates, who could not take the first shift examination due to late arrival at the examination centre. They joined in the second shift.
Surprise inspection by DM
Lucknow district magistrate Abhishek Prakash inspected Sri Jai Narayan Mishra PG College (KKC), Bappa Sri Narain Vocational Inter College, and Mahamana Malviya Vidya Mandir Inter College, Vivek Khand-1 Gomti Nagar. He instructed centre administrators to follow Covid-19 protocols. Smart monitoring through CCTV was also done.
Mathematics tormented the candidates
The question paper in both the shifts of UPTET was common, with mathematics bothering most of the candidates.
The mathematics section of the examination was comparatively more difficult, said the candidates after appearing for UPTET.
“I prepared well for the exam. The paper was simple. I faced no problem in solving it,” said Vagish Srivastava, while another candidate Prabhakar added, “Social distancing was followed in the examination hall. Even after the examination was over, the candidates were released separately to avoid chaos.”
Digi locker soft copy invalid
The government gave strict instructions to ensure that there is no dispute in the UPTET exam, and candidates were instructed to bring their original certificates or attested proofs. A few of the candidates at TD Girls Inter College were without certificates and instead showed a soft copy of the certificates uploaded in the digi locker to the officials. However, it wasn’t accepted.
“The government has approved digi locker. Despite this, I wasn’t allowed to appear for the examination. If the original proof gets lost then, who’ll take responsibility,” said Shashank, a candidate.
The results of the exam will be declared on February 25. ERA will release the answer key of the examination on January 27. The aspirants will have the opportunity to register their online objections to the answer key by February 1. The special committee will go through the objections on February 21 and publish the final answer keys on February 23, an official said.
UPTET is a state-level exam conducted once a year to enable candidates to gain eligibility to teach primary (Classes 1-5) and upper primary (Classes 6-8) in schools of the Uttar Pradesh government.
(With inputs from Faara Nadeem)