Cuttack: Hundreds of teachers from different districts of Odisha congregated in front of the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) Odisha office here on Thursday and staged a demonstration alleging irregularities in the conduct of the special Odisha Teacher Eligibility Test (OTET). The agitating teachers demanded awarding of grace marks or a reduction in pass percentage.
It is worth mentioning here that the BSE published the list of qualified teachers on January 9 and many teachers found that their names teachers were excluded from the list of qualified teachers.
Many of these teachers have only three to four years left before retirement. They complained that the question papers had several errors. “Even the teachers who give correct answers were not qualified, the agitators alleged.
According to a teacher Jyoti Bhushan Nayak, “The special OTET was held in August 2022. Though the government issued guidelines regarding the special OTET, we were not aware of it when we were appointed in 2022. Had we known about it, we would have appeared for the exam earlier. We hope that the state government will consider our demands.”
He added, “If we are not grace marks, the government and the BSE official should qualify the teachers who secure 40-50 percent marks in the special OTET. Unfortunately, our demands are being overlooked.”
Other teachers said that they have been running from pillar to post for the last few months to ensure that they are qualified. “We have been running to the BSE office to get some grace marks. The results were published on January 9 and the OMR sheet was released On Wednesday. Had the OMR sheet been published earlier, we would have filled up forms for re-examination,” one teacher said.
