IBPS Bank Exams to go online
The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) is one of the leading institutions in India to screen candidates for Public Sector Banks, Private and Foreign Banks, Regional Rural Banks, Central and Other Financial Institutions, Co-operative Banks, and Insurance Companies. It conducts Common Written Exam (CWE) for both Probationary Officer (PO) and Clerical cadres.
On November 15, 2012, Finance Minister P Chidambaram announced that public sector banks and financial institutions will fill around 63,000 vacancies including officers and clerical grades in the current fiscal year.
Since most PSUs (except State Bank of India (SBI) and its associate banks) recruit through IBPS CWE, there is an excellent opportunity-in-waiting for those who aspire for bank jobs. Some changes have been introduced to IBPS Bank Exams 2013, particularly IBPS CWE Clerical.
Changes introduced to IBPS CWE:
- From next year, all bank recruitment tests by IBPS will go online. The Common Written Exam (CWE) for clerical cadres, scheduled on December 15, 16, 22 and 23, 2012 will be the first test to be conducted online.
- Earlier, aspirants in the range of 18 to 28 years (as on October 1 of the year of the exam) who had passed Class XII were considered eligible for the CWE Clerical exam. Now, the minimum age bar has been raised to 20 years while the minimum educational qualification has been raised to the graduate degree.
- The format for IBPS CWE Clerical has also been changed. Earlier, it stretched for two-and-a-half hours and had five sections with 50 questions each. The sections were:
- Quantitative Aptitude
- Reasoning
- English
- General Awareness and
- Computers
Now, the sections remain the same but the number of questions in each section has been reduced to 40. Thus, the total number of questions has been decreased from 250 to 200 and the duration of the paper has been brought down to two hours.
It is expected that about 30 to 35 lakh students will appear for IBPS CWE (Clerical) exams in December 2012.
