The Madras High Court on Friday ruled that those appointed as secondary grade teacher or graduate teacher/B.T. Assistant before July 29, 2011, must be allowed to continue in service and given increments, as well as incentives, even if they had not cleared the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET).
Justices R. Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq, however, made it clear that the teachers must clear TET for their promotional prospects. They struck down a 2020 rule prescribing a pass in TET only for direct recruitment to the post of B.T. Assistant and not for promotions.
The judges said TET must be made mandatory even for promotion to the post of B.T. Assistant from a secondary grade teacher post, and for further promotion to the post of headmaster. Clearing the test would not be mandatory only for continuance in service without promotions. They delivered the verdict on a batch of cases. While the Director of School Education had filed a writ appeal against a single judge’s order not to disturb teachers who were appointed before 2011 and not cleared TET, a few individual candidates and an association of teachers had moved the court. All the cases were heard together.
Authoring the 132-page verdict, Justice Mahadevan said, the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) had issued a notification on August 23, 2010, laying down the minimum qualifications for teachers of Classes I-VIII. The notification was issued under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. Subsequently, on July 29, 2011, the NCTE made certain amendments to the notification and made TET compulsory for all those who teach students of Class I-VIII. After the amendment, the Teachers Recruitment Board was made as the nodal agency for conducting TET in Tamil Nadu.
Since several disputes had arisen pursuant to the notification with hundreds of teachers facing the threat of losing their jobs due to non-clearance of TET, the judges made it clear that all those appointed before July 29, 2011, would be exempt from passing TET only for the purpose of continuance in their post without promotions.
Further taking note of a complaint that the TET was not being conducted periodically and recruitment had not taken place for many years, the judges directed the State government to conduct the test regularly and fill vacancies through direct recruitment as well as promotions, from among the TET-qualified candidates, at the earliest.
