The appointment of chief superintendents and departmental officers for the upcoming Intermediate Public Examination (IPE) 2025 theory exams, starting from March 5 to 25, has snowballed into a controversy with the lecturers opposing the process.
According to government junior college lecturers, the decentralised appointment process which has been in practice for a long time till last year, wherein the District Examination Committees (DEC) used to appoint chief superintendents and departmental officers to nearby colleges, has now been made centralised with the Telangana Board of Intermediate Education (TGBIE) making the appointments directly and that too in an unscientific manner by posting the faculty members to distant examination centres, as far as 80-120 km, stated a report by The New Indian Express.
As per an earlier order issued by TGBIE Secretary Krishna Aditya dated February 18, the departmental officers and chief superintendent were to be deployed in the same mandal or town within 25 km distance. However, the same order was revised and the criteria of distance was ignored.
Stating that the move would only lead to impediments in conducting the exams in over 1,800 centres in 33 districts, the Telangana Government Junior Lecturers' Association wrote a letter to principal secretary of education Yogita Rana highlighting that the examination officials were deployed to colleges not far from their work place or residences only by the DEC as per the TGBIE norms.
However, the TGBIE has now directly appointed the officials assigning them to locations as far as 80 km to 120 km away, thus making it extremely challenging for them to stick to the tough deadlines for reaching the exam centres with question papers.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, P Madhusudhan Reddy, President of the association, said, "The chief superintendents and departmental officers have to reach the designated police station by 8 am to collect the question papers and then reach the colleges assigned to them. If the officials are posted to centres which are far away, it can compromise the whole process of conducting the exam in a time-bound manner as longer distances can involve the risk of heavy traffic and can heighten stress levels, not to overlook the possibility of accidents. We are demanding that the officials should be appointed to nearby colleges as has been the practice for at least 20 years."
He further said that earlier each lecturer would be posted for only three days at the exam centres with four batches for the exam duration but now one official has been posted throughout the scheduled exam, making the job more stressful.
He said that the lecturers are demanding that they be assigned to nearby exam centres by the TGBIE, stated a report by The New Indian Express.
"We have requested the secretary to review the postings. In case they fail to meet our demands we will reach out to the chief minister and as a last resort, we will boycott the exams," Madhusudhan added.
Officials were not available when The New Indian Express tried to reach them for their comments.
