Every two to four months you hear news of rigging in government examinations. That the paper for that exam was leaked or the admit cards have not come.
During the Budget speech Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that there will be a single online exam for recruitment to non-gazetted government posts and in government banks, which will be called the Common Eligibility Test (CET).
Now, two things have to be understood here: One is that there will be the same exam for the same type of government jobs in different departments and secondly, the exam will be a computer-based, online.
Online exams are currently being conducted for many such jobs, but now there will be one online exam for all jobs like RRB, IBPS and SSC which used to have different examinations. A national recruitment agency will be created for these recruitments. Test centres will be built in every district.
The score of CET will be valid for three years from the date of declaration of the result. The candidates and their scores will be provided to different recruitment agencies as well. The candidate will get two more chances to improve his/her score, and the best score among all three scores will be considered.
With this, the recruitment will also be done for state government jobs. Reports state that a review was sought from all departments of the Centre and states for this new proposal.
Now that the Common Eligibility Test has been announced, it is obvious that the youth who are preparing for these exams in Delhi, Patna, Bengaluru, Chennai and Guwahati will be eager. We talked to many such students to know more about their doubts and questions.
Some students are happy that they do not have to pay money separately for different entrance tests. However, some are worried that if they've been specifically preparing for RRB why should they have to compete with applicants for IBPS.
The government should launch a 'pilot project' or conduct an experiment before launching it.
After all, careers of crores of youths hinge on this.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)