PESHAWAR: President of All Teachers Association Chitral Nisar Ahmed has opposed negative marking in the test to be conducted for hiring of teachers by the Khyber Pakthunkhwa Education Department.
He said negative marking will increase the mental stress of candidates, which will have a direct impact on their ability and performance. \”The ability to make a guess is also part of knowledge, it should not be penalized.\”
He said when negative marking is not applied in other competitive exams, it is unfair to implement this policy only in the Teaching Cadres Test. Unemployed candidates are under increasing pressure.
Nisar Ahmed said millions of candidates were already suffering from unemployment and mental stress due to the lack of government jobs in the last four years, and now the policy of negative marking is creating more difficulties. He said even in other exam like PMS, there was not as much rigor as was being put in the PST and CT exams.
The teachers\’ representative demanded the Education Department and ETA authorities that negative marking in the teaching cadre test should be done away with immediately.
Respecting the hard work of the students, they should be relieved of mental stress and provided a peaceful exam environment. The recruitment process should be simplified rather than making more stringent so that candidates can get better opportunities.
It may be mentioned that the Education Department has received 867,000 applications for 16,454 teaching positions in government schools.
Among the applicants are 406 PhD degree holders, 7,161 differently-abled individuals, and four transgenders.