Uttar Pradesh Teachers Eligibility Test (UPTET) 2019 examination will now be held on January 8, 2020 (Wednesday), said Renuka Kumar, additional chief secretary, basic education department here on Monday.
Earlier, the said exam was to be held on December 22, 2019. However, two days prior to the said exam (on December 20) it was postponed due to unavoidable circumstances especially due to anti CAA protest across the state. Over 1.6 million candidates have registered for the Uttar Pradesh Teachers’ Eligibility Test (UPTET)-2019.
The higher education department has issued directives to the officials to keep all degree colleges that comes under its ambit closed on January 8 in view of UPTET examination as 1.6 million candidates had to be accommodated.
Basic education minister Satish Dwivedi on Thursday said they were working to find out a suitable date. “Availability of centres for that many candidates is a consideration,” said the minister.
As per information received from National Informatics Centre (NIC) at Prayagraj-headquartered Exam Regulatory Authority, UP— the body entrusted with the task of conducting the exam— a total of 10,68,912 candidates have registered to appear in the exam at primary level while 5,65,337 have done so for the upper-primary level, an official said.
POPULARITY OF THE EXAM
The popularity of the exam can be gauged from the fact that UPTET held on November 18, 2018 attracted around 2.2 million (22 lakh) registrations, of which 17.83 lakh candidates were issued admit cards. The primary level exam saw 11,01,645 out of the 11,70,786 appear in the exam while at the upper primary level also 5,71,416 appeared in the exam out of the total 6,12,930 candidates.
Candidates who have passed BTC, BEd or other National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) approved courses can appear in this test so as to become eligible to appear in Teacher’s Recruitment Exam—the final hurdle for a candidate to become a teacher in government-run primary and upper primary schools.
NCTE allowed B Ed pass candidates to apply for primary school teachers’ posts in June 2018 and this saw the number of applicants rise dramatically in UPTET.
