Cancel HPSC’s geography paper, demand candidates

Tribune News Service

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Chandigarh, April 26

Candidates who appeared in the recruitment test for the post of assistant professor (college cadre) in geography by the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) have demanded cancellation of the paper due to errors in the question paper and answer key.

Candidates Neeraj Singh, Arvind Yaduvanshi, Ekta and Kuldeep Singh, besides others, today alleged in a representation to the government that the key of the HPSC for the recruitment test on March 6 had 14 incorrect answers.

They claimed that four questions had more than one option as the right answer, six questions were out of syllabus and there was a spelling mistake in one case.

“The HPSC had asked the candidates to file objections to the questions. We submitted our objections on March 9, but had not received any response so far,” said Neeraj Singh.

Dr Mahabir Jaglan, geography professor in Kurukshetra University, echoed the concern of candidates. He said he had received several calls from former students in the past some days in this regard. He expressed surprise over the question paper of the HPSC, which was more designed to judge the general awareness of candidates rather than their knowledge of the subject.

“I have gone through the syllabus of the HPSC, which is like the one set by the UGC for junior research fellow examination. The question paper belies seriousness since it does not test a candidate’s indepth knowledge of the subject, which is required while appointing an assistant professor,” he said.

Manbir Singh Bhadana, chairman of the HPSC, played down the errors. He said mistakes were bound to happen in the question papers. “We cannot send these papers to different examiners for checking for the sake of secrecy. Hence, we invite objections from the candidates after the test. Once objections are received, these are checked by a three-member expert committee,” he stated.

“The questions recommended as incorrect by the committee are deleted and the percentile of marks is calculated from the remaining questions. All candidates get the benefit of deleted questions across the board,” he maintained.