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.
