WHO IS TRAPPED IN THE UGC NET?

The University Grants Commission, a statutory body of the Indian Government formed through an Act of Parliament in 1956 for “the coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of university education in India”, conducts the National Eligibility Test since 1989 “to determine eligibility for lectureship and for award of Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) for Indian nationals in order to ensure minimum standards for the entrants in the teaching profession and research.” The test remains mandatory for candidates dreaming of becoming permanent lecturers. The intentions behind holding such a test, like most of the bureaucratic intentions, were indeed noble. However, when it came to implementation, the NET test can be a nightmare for the aspirants.

The major problems of this test are regarding the quality, vagueness and even irrelevance of many questions that are asked.  For instance, one has only to consider some of the questions asked in the December 2008 test for the paper one, which is “General Paper on Teaching and Research Aptitude”.

Here is the very first question of the paper:

1) According to Swami Vivekananda, teacher’s success depends on:

            i)   His renunciation of personal gain and service to others

            ii)  His professional training and creativity

            iii) His concentration on his work and duties with a spirit of obedience to God

            iv) His mastery on the subject and capacity in controlling the students

An objective type question, by definition, is the question which can have ONE AND ONLY ONE correct answer. As most of the new candidates and the old university teachers would not locate the exact source from which this question is taken, it can be readily be seen that there are more than one correct answer to this question. A person like me would not mind selecting all of the above option MINUS the phrases like “a spirit of obedience to God” and “capacity in controlling the students.’ Such an option is not given. One may wonder how two phrases like “His (sic) mastery (?) on the subject” and “capacity in controlling the students” are connected. The questions like this would leave even the Swamiji perplexed regarding his own views on the subject.

Now consider the second and grammatically incorrect question in the paper:

2) Which of the following teacher, will be liked most:

            i)   A teacher of high idealistic attitude

            ii)  A loving teacher

            iii) A teacher who is disciplined

            iv) A teacher who often amuses his students

The correct option would be the teacher who resembles or does not resemble the candidate’s daddy. The option, however, is not available.  Whether a particular student likes the stand-up comedian in front or the person which “high idealistic attitude’ is purely a subjective issue. If the quality of questions meant for the future teachers in universities is this ridiculous, I am amazed how people manage to clear this test at all.

The vagueness, irrelevance and language abuse (Down with the language of colonizers!!!)  is reflected in the syllabus of the paper one too. The syllabus says, “The test is aimed at assessing the teaching and general/research aptitudes as well as their awareness. They are expected to possess and exhibit cognitive abilities.” Awareness of what? If they don’t possess and exhibit cognitive abilities, will they be considered alive? General –slash- research aptitudes? What’s that?

There is a section in the paper on Information and Communication Technology. The question in the December 2008 paper from this section was as follows:

36) The accounting software ‘Tally’ was developed by:

a) HCL  b) TCS  c) Infosys d) Wipro

Now is the candidate who is appearing for lecturership in History or even worse, in English, will have any idea about the right answer? How many senior university teachers in the Humanities or Medicine or Arab Culture and Islamic Studies know the answer to this question? 

Such kind of questions reveal the ignorance of fact that the people who take this test come from wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds and they hardly require the kind of knowledge that’s being tested in the paper. In short, the examiners and paper setters have absolutely no idea who they are testing and what they want to test.

Besides, what the test tests is, most of the time, alas, memory. If this is what is expected from the future teachers at university levels, I wonder what ‘minimum standards’ will the UGC NET ensure.

The test is compulsory also for the candidates who have done actual research at M.Phil and doctoral level. UGC, it implies, does not trust the ability of its own teachers who have supervised the research and the students it has registered. This sort of `doubting its own product’ would have an adverse impact on the image of the UGC. I feel that UGC does not realize this.

The effort was made to review this test under Prof Mungekar and it has a questionnaire which is available online. The instruction says that the questionnaire is to be filled up and sent to the authorities within thirty days of the date mentioned on the covering letter. The covering letter, however, is not available online, so the whole question of the date and thirty days is misleading.

The test is tyrannically imposed on the aspirants and it sees to it only the luckier ones manage to clear it and thus defeating the very purpose of such a test. If the test has to achieve its objectives, then, it is high time we RATIONALIZED it. The UGC should appoint the paper setters who not only know the language in which they are setting the papers but also know how to frame questions. The vagueness, linguistic incorrectness and irrelevance of much of the content of the paper results in the test being a sort of gamble as most of the large-scale tests are in our country. This sort of opacity would undoubtedly result in corruption at many levels.  This test becomes a nightmare for most of the aspirants. It leaves many of the temporary university teachers at the mercy of the authorities, most of who would not mind exploiting them. The present form of the test would only end up the intelligent and capable candidates whose `objective type’ memory is not all that good out of the system and thus be detrimental to the system of Higher Education which is already in doldrums, thanks to the negligence of the politicians and decision makers in the country. 

Books and websites for UGC-NET, SLET EXAMS

The season of the UGC-NET and SLET exams is approaching and I am often asked what books should be consulted for preparation. So here goes my recommended list. The basic problems before the aspirants are due to irrationality of the test and own lack of interest in the subject. 

Here is my tip for anyone who wants to perform well at the NET or SLET or any exam for the matter:

Scoring well or clearing is what score board is to a game. The question should not be how to make more runs but how to improve batting or bowling.  Clearing an exam is an outcome of performance , not performance itself. Hence if you develop interest or love for the subject ( History of English literature and criticism)  your performance will improve on its own. 

However, here it goes: 

For the first paper, I think one can use books on Reasoning and Clerical Aptitude published by  Competition Success Review and Manorama Year Books are good for current affairs.

However, for other papers I recommend these books:

Abrams, M.H. and G.G. Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. eleventh edition, Cengage India Learning Pvt Ltd, 2014. Lucid, useful and very wide-ranging introduction to key terms and ideas in the field.

Abrams, M.H. et all ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol. I and II. New York and London. W.W. Norton and Company. 10th ed, 2018 is The Maa and Baap of all examinations of English literature. Massive. If you are serious and committed to clear NET/SLET this is the place. But if you are seriously interested in studying English literature this is THE place.

Anjaria, Ulka. ed. A History of the Indian Novel in English. Cambridge University Press, 2015 a much-needed history of Indian novel in English.

Asagoff, Lubna et. all ed. Principles and Practices for Teaching English as an International Language. New York. Routledge. 2012

Cohen, Walter. A History of European Literature: The West and the World from Antiquity to the Present. Oxford University Press. 2017, very useful for world literature questions.

Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. OUP, 2nd ed, 2011. Very lucid and exciting introduction, my personal favourite! Now also has a list of schools and approaches. 

Devy, GN ed. Indian Literary Criticism: Theory and Interpretation, Hyderabad: Orient Longman Ltd, 3^rd. ed, 2020. A place to start exploring the key texts in Indian literary criticism and theory, an extremely useful anthology.

Habib, MAR.  A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato to Present. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. One of the best introductions to the subject. The chapter on 20th century Criticism is one of the most lucid introductions to a very complex field.

Kudchedkar, Shirin. ed. Readings in English Language Teaching in India. Hyderabad. Orient Longman Pvt Ltd., 2002

 Leitch, Vincent B et al. eds. The Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism and Theory. NY and London: WW Norton and Co., 3rd ed, 2018. The BAAP of all anthologies of literary criticism and theory. An anthology of essential statements from Plato to Posthumanism, you name it and you have it. 

Mehrotra, AK. An Illustrated History of Indian Literature in English, New Delhi: Permanent Black (Ravi Dayal), 2003. A very good starting point for literary history of Indian writing in English.

 Natarajan, Nalini. ed. Handbook of Twentieth-Century Literatures of India. Greenwood Press, 1996, a valuable introduction to the twentieth century modern Indian literatures.

Richards, J and Rogers, T. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, 2nd Edition. 2001. A very comprehensive Introduction to ELT. I studied it during my masters.

Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature.3^rd ed, OUP, 2005, in my view the best history of English literature I have read, though there are others more useful from examination purposes, this one provides an analysis based on the sociological and cultural contexts and is very readable. It replaces the dated Legois and Cazamian history. Paul Poplawski ed. English Literature in Context, Cambridge University Press, 2^nd ed, 2017 is more examination oriented.

Stinger, Jenny ed. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English. Oxford and New York. Oxford University Press. 1996. Fairly comprehensive guide to key texts and authors of world literature in English. 

You can check out following links too:

i) Luminarium.org is a very good site

ii) Indian English Literature

iii) Bartleby is a very good site
iv) Britannica. com for English literature also has a good entry on prosody 
v) Lang Nagoya is a site with links to other sites
vi) Study.com has an online course on basics of English literature 
vii) Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy provides a discussion and reading list for literary criticism and theory
viii) Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) has a good information about literary theory and criticism 

ix) Here is a link to OTHER USEFUL LINKS ON THE NET is made by yours faithfully. It is a very good page indeed ...
x) MY YOUTUBE PLAYLIST OF USEFUL VIDEOS FOR NET/SET ASPIRANTS