TSCHE pushed into tight spot

Hyderabad: Only two months are left to hold eight common entrance tests and the Telangana State Council for Higher Education (TSCHE) seems to have gone into a mission mode to scout for subject experts in the Urdu language across the country.

The schedules for all the CETS have been notified and the officials have been instructed that they should hold online entrance tests in Urdu medium, besides English and Telugu languages. Since Urdu language has been declared as the second official language, the State government reportedly wanted to hold all online examinations in Urdu medium too. It was against this backdrop, the directions to hold all the CETs in the Urdu medium have come from none other than Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.

However, the TSCHE is said to be in a fix as it has to figure out subject experts in Urdu language in streams like Agriculture, Physics, Biological Sciences and the like, to translate the question papers. According to sources, earlier, it was decided to prepare the question papers in English and Telugu languages for all the CETs. The students will have to get them registered online and give their medium of preference in which they wanted to give the examination while filling up the application from. Now, one more medium of preference will be added which would not be a problem.

But, the TSCHE is said to be finding it tough to get the right domain expert to translate the technical terms of different subjects like Agriculture, Physics, Biology, Chemistry and the like.
It is against this backdrop that the TSCHE is trying to study the tests being conducted in other States by Central agencies like CBSE that are engaged in conducting tests in Urdu medium.

It is not possible to prepare different question papers for different mediums and all question papers should have the same questions. Also, each question in all the mediums should give the same meaning which needs to be taken care of during translation. Taking into consideration all these aspects, the TSCHE Chairman Prof T Papi Reddy deliberated the issues involved in the preparation of question papers in Urdu medium. 

He is said to be trying to ensure that suitable subject experts are being roped in to implement the government's objective to hold the ensuing CETs in Urdu medium. As per the notified schedule, all the CETs will start from the first week and end in the last week of May 2018.