Mail Today Even teachers cheat in Bihar ;

A file photo of candidates appearing for the Bihar Teachers' Eligibility Test in Patna.After grappling with the problems of mass copying and 'dummy' candidates in different examinations recently, Bihar's Nitish Kumar government has yet another problem staring in its face now: Fake certificates.
Thousands of applicants to the posts of primary teachers in the state have submitted fake TET (teachers' eligibility test) certificates, along with their applications in different districts. The TET is the main criterion for the selection.
This came to light during a meeting of the senior officials of the primary education department with the district magistrates, deputy development commissioners and other officials on Wednesday.

 

 

Results deferred
According to education department officials, approximately 25 per cent of the applicants have furnished fake certificates in several districts.
Director (Primary Education) Sridhar C. has asked the district officials to lodge FIRs and take other suitable actions against the erring job aspirants. Education department officials said that the date for the results of the recruitment test has now been deferred from March 29 to April 15.
Bihar had recently witnessed widespread cheating in the matriculation examinations which was followed by the arrest of more than 1,200 candidates in the ongoing police constable recruitment examination on the charge of forgery.
The government is, at present, in the process of filling 94,000 vacancies for primary teachers.
"The exact number of applicants who have furnished fake certificates is not known as the data from all the districts is yet to come. However, the number of candidates is believed to be substantially high," said, senior education department official R.S. Singh, who attended the meeting with the district officials.
"Orders have been given to lodge FIRs against those found guilty," he added. Singh said that the government had organised the TET in 2011 and later in 2013 for Urdu teachers. "The results of those tests are valid for seven years for the recruitment of teachers. Besides, the Central Teachers Eligibility Test (CTET) results are also valid. But many candidates who failed to qualify in those tests chose to forge documents to get the jobs," he said.
Singh said that the fraud was detected because the department had provided the results of both the TETs to all the district education officials.
Last year, the Bihar government had sacked about 1,100 teachers for submitting fake documents.
The Nitish Kumar government had offered jobs on contract to about 2.5 lakh teachers on a consolidated salary of up to `7,000 per month after coming to power in 2005 in a bid to improve the education scenario in the state. But many contractual teachers later resorted to agitation seeking salary at par with regular teachers.