Tamil paper made compulsory in recruitment exams
CHENNAI: To ensure that students with knowledge of Tamil have an advantage in government jobs, a GO was issued making a Tamil language paper compulsory for all competitive exams conducted by all the recruiting agencies, including the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC).
The order also stated that the qualifying paper will be of SSLC standard. People appearing for the exams have to score at least 40% marks in the Tamil paper to get qualified for evaluation of other papers in the exam.
The announcement to make Tamil compulsory in all the competitive exams was made by State Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan in the Assembly, on September 13, following which the State issued detailed guidelines for implementing the announcement.
According to the order, for TNPSC Group-I, II and IIA exams, having two or more stages, Tamil has been made a compulsory paper in the main examination which will be in a descriptive format. Aspirants have to clear the Tamil paper by scoring 40% and only then will other subjects in the main exam be evaluated. However, there is no change in the preliminary exams for Group-I, II and IIA exams.
In case of single stage exams like group-III and IV exams, Tamil paper will be made mandatory in the preliminary exams as ‘General English’ paper will be removed and only ‘General Tamil’ will be made compulsory for all the candidates. Only after clearing the ‘General Tamil’ paper the aptitude and mental ability paper will be evaluated.
The same set of rules will be applicable for other recruiting agencies such as Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB), Medical Services Recruitment Board, Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board (TNUSRB), Tamil Nadu Forest Uniformed Services Recruitment Committee and so on. The respective recruitment agencies will release separate guidelines for each exam conducted by them.