6 lakh teachers in Maharashtra may have to clear TET after SC ruling, MLC seeks 6 months leave

About 70-75% of teachers in Maharashtra will now be required to sit for the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) after the Supreme Court ruled that qualifying the exam is mandatory for aspiring and in-service teachers, Maharashtra Legislative Council (MLC) member JM Abhyankar said in a letter to Dadaji Bhuse, minister of school education.

A bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Manmohan on September 1 held that teachers in non-minority institutions with over five years of service left must clear the TET exam within two years. The judgment was passed in compliance with the RTE Act, which was reiterated in the NCTE’s 2011 notification making the exam compulsory for teacher recruitment.

Teachers appointed in minority institutions and those with less than five years’ service left will be exempted from the current rule. Those who fail to qualify the exam will face termination. However, they will be given their retirement benefits, according to the Supreme Court ruling.

In his letter, Abhyankar claimed that nearly 6 lakh in-service teachers in the state will have to clear the TET exam to continue their service or seek promotion. He warned that nearly 75% of the teachers in Maharashtra will have to qualify the exam within two years, creating an “unprecedented burden”.

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The challenges for these teachers include unfamiliarity with the TET syllabus, reliance only on textbooks and reference materials, and the additional burden of academic and non-academic duties like teaching, evaluation, and more. He added that “there is a greater possibility of failure than success”.

He requested the Maharashtra school education minister to grant six months special leave for teachers preparing for the exam and asked the minister to free them from non-academic duties.

He also demanded that the Maharashtra State Examination Council conduct the TET three times a year for the next two years.

Abhyankar also suggested that teachers who fail to clear the TET despite “sincere efforts” within the stipulated two years should be declared “TET deemed qualified” to protect their service continuity.

However, the Supreme Court ruling states that the service of teachers who fail to qualify the TET exam will be terminated.