Gajendra Singh Negi | Dehradun The Supreme Court order mandating Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) level one qualification for all the primary school teachers has put a question mark over the fate of more than 17,000 government school teachers in Uttarakhand. As per the order of the SC, these teachers are now left with no choice but to clear TET level one examination within a period of two years. The teachers failing to clear the aforesaid examination within two years will have to tender their resignation from the service. The SC order has come as a shock for about 17,000 teachers working in the primary and upper primary schools of the State. Most of these teachers were appointed prior to 2011 when there was no compulsion to clear the TET examination for the job of a teacher. The TET examination which has been made mandatory to clear by the SC is conducted by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). In the level one examination of TET questions on languages, child development of pedagogy, mathematics and environmental studies are asked. For qualifying the examination the candidate must score 60 per cent or more marks which makes it very tough to clear. The SC order on the compulsion of TET has made the teachers apprehensive. One of the female teachers posted in a village of Pauri district said, “I am 53 years old and at this age it will be very tough for me to compete with the youngsters and clear the examination. Past experience shows that the pass percentage in the TET examination is less than 20 per cent. The government should take cognizance of our plight.’’ The former president of Uttarakhand Prathmik Shikshak Sangh (UPSS), Digvijay Singh told The Pioneer that the SC order will impact about 17,000 teachers in Uttarakhand. He said it will be very difficult for these teachers working in the department from the last 20- 25 years to clear the TET examination. The State president of UPSS, Govind Singh Vohra said that the government should file a review petition in the double bench of the SC to protect jobs of the teachers. Vohra added that he has contacted the national president of All India Primary Teachers Association on the issue and requested that the association should come forward on the issue. On Monday, a SC bench comprising Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Manmohan ordered compulsion of TET test clearance for all the primary school teachers of the country. The bench also held that those in-service teachers having less than five years of service left will not have compulsion of TET examination clearance. However, for promotion, they should clear the TET, the bench ordered.
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