School teacher recruitment exams begin in Bihar

Patna: School teacher recruitment examinations began on Thursday at 870 centres across Bihar, amid tight security, officials said.

The tests are being conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) and will continue till Saturday.

More than 8 lakh aspirants have applied for the recruitment of 1,70,461 school teachers in the state.

“Proper arrangements have been made to ensure seamless execution of tests at 870 examination centres across the state. The exams would be conducted in two shifts, with primary teacher recruitment tests and compulsory paper assessments scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

"Secondary teachers' assessments (for classes IX and X) will be held in the first half of August 26 while in the second shift, tests for higher secondary teachers (classes XI and XII) will be conducted," a senior BPSC official said.

He also said 79,943 teachers would be recruited in primary schools, 32,916 in secondary and 57,602 in higher secondary schools.

Candidates' biometric data has been collected, and a facial recognition system has also been installed for authentication.

The police and district administrations are keeping a constant vigil on the examination centres.

“All arrangements are in place to ensure smooth conduct of examinations. The administration has also formed several flying squads to check whether there is any violation of the guidelines issued by the BPSC," Patna District Magistrate Chandrashekhar Singh told PTI.

Echoing a similar view, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP-Patna) Rajeev Mishra told PTI, "Adequate security forces have been deployed at all examination centres in Patna to check any untoward incident." The state government had, in May, approved a proposal to recruit 1.78 lakh teachers in schools.

The entire recruitment process is expected to be completed by the end of this year, the official added.