CHENNAI: A total of 1,60,929 of the 1,67,743 in-service teachers who had applied for the special Tamil Nadu Teacher Eligibility Test (TNTET) Paper II appeared for the examination on Sunday, recording an overall attendance of 95.94% across 613 examination centres in the state. Several of the teachers handling Classes 6 to 8 described the examination difficult and urged the government to make the qualifying criteria more lenient.
The special examination is being conducted following a Supreme Court ruling that all teachers handling Classes 1 to 8 must clear the TET, even if they were appointed before the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, came into force. The court directed that such teachers should qualify the examination by 2028. Paper I for teachers handling Classes 5 to 5 was held on Saturday.
Teachers who took Paper II said the Social Science section contained lengthy, statement-based questions, many of which referenced historical years, making it difficult to complete the paper within the allotted time. They also found some application-based questions in the Mathematics section challenging. The Language and Pedagogy sections, however, were generally easier, they said.
Teacher associations demand that the qualifying mark be set at 40% for all candidates.