The Madras High Court has held as mandatory the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET), prescribed under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009, and denied any scope for circumventing it.
The court on Monday rejected writ pleas from over 100 candidates whose certificate verification was done well before the RTE Act was notified, for a direction to the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) to recruit them as teachers without insisting they undergo the TET.
“If the plea of the petitioners is accepted, then more than 20,000 persons could enter without having the minimum qualification of TET, as prescribed in the RTE Act read with the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), Regulations. This court cannot issue such a direction to appoint them contrary to the statutory provisions and the constitutional mandate as held by the Supreme Court,’’ Justice D Hariparanthaman said on Monday.
The judge was dismissing a batch of over 100 writ petitions from S Daisy Rani and others seeking the direction. Since the process of appointment of teachers was initiated prior to August 23, 2010 — the date of notification of the NCTE prescribing TET — they should be exempted from passing the TET and accommodated in the future vacancies as per the order dated July 9 this year of a division bench of this court, petitioners contended. Or otherwise, they might be granted five years period for passing the TET after appointment, they added.
Senior candidates who participated in the certificate verification along with the petitioners were selected for the notified vacancies and appointed without insistence on a pass in TET but the petitioners were not selected.
Rejecting the contentions, the judge observed that as per the provisions of the RTE Act and Rules and the August 2010 Notification of the NCTE and the amended notification of July, 2011, candidates working as teachers at the time of commencement of the RTE Act alone could be granted the grace period of five years.
As regards the second contention, the judge said that the senior candidates had come under the category of clause 5 and 5(a) of NCTE’s August 2010 and July 2011 notifications. They should also undergo the TET within five years, the judge said.
Hence, the non-selected candidates could not seek appointment in the future vacancies based on certificate verification without a pass in TET, the judge said.