Written tests for Assistant Professors

Dear Editor,
Since the repeated request for declaration of long pending results and conduct of exams for earlier notified advertisement has fallen on deaf ears, add to that the prevailing confusion regarding the APPSCCE Preliminary exam and its ongoing debate, i would like to take this blessed time interval to suggest the APPSC that it should conduct written screening test for the post of Assistant Professor before conducting Interviews. Assistant professor is a highly regarded post which has an important role to play in shaping the minds of the younger generation. It is not a post of contractual nature and hence its recruitment process must not be in line to those of contractual jobs. Recruiting people to this position just on the basis of walk-in interviews is equivalent to undermining its importance and it may also lead to recruiting wrong person as the commission has already accepted that human error is possible. When the machines of the commission can make mistakes on behest of human error, isn’t it a possibility that “Human” interview board might also commit such error especially in judging a persons intellectual capacity in a short interview session. When recruitment examination can be conducted for TGT’s and PGT’s then why not for Assistant Professor. Conducting exams will also minimize the number of qualified candidates since in today’s competitive world many have qualified for NET and SLET and for 2-3 post the number of competitors are very high as was evident in the last recruitment exercise. Therefore eliminating the low scorers in the screening exam will ensure that the 1:3 ratio for interview is achieved. To rely entirely on interview for recruitment to such a high post is not at all comporting since in interview objectivity is hard to maintained and biasness might creep in at the subconscious level. Even in the official notification for assistant professor, it has been stated that screening exams may be conducted if the number of applicants is high. The result of the students of the government colleges in the state in successive years might put a light on where such errors might have occurred and the commission should attempt to take a right step toward error-free recruitment process. Uploading yet another addendum informing the pattern along with a syllabus for the recruitment of Assistant Professor should not be a problem for the commission infact it will be praiseworthy.
Yours,
An Aspirant