No guidance, no time: TET exam prep leaves teachers scrambling to balance studies alongside full-time jobs

Arpita Madhavan taught at Padma Seshadri School for 11 years before leaving at the start of the year to start her own coaching centre in March. She names two reasons for her concern. "It's an absolute waste of time for me to do a TET exam with this many years of experience," she says. The bigger issue, she adds, isn't the exam content itself — it's the logistics. "It's not about giving the exam, it's the time and effort, and going to a centre to write it."

Madhavan says she understands the need to screen out ineligible candidates, but believes that the check should have happened before recruitment, not after over a decade on the job. "If you are recruiting somebody, check all these things before you recruit them," she says. As it stands, she calls the mandate "an irritating procedure”.

The Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year that all in-service school teachers must clear the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) has triggered a scramble among experienced educators and raised questions about systemic support. Upholding Section 23 of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, the court exempted only teachers with five years or less left before retirement.

Minister Rajmohan recently said around 3,28,701 government school teachers who are expected to take the TET are at risk of losing their jobs or positions if they fail to clear the examination. The affected teachers include those who have already completed 15 to 20 years of service, raising concerns about the impact of the ruling on experienced educators.

Invoking Article 142 of the Constitution, the court granted teachers a compliance window until August 31, 2028. Rather than immediate terminations, the extended deadline has left teachers across the country preparing for TET alongside their full-time jobs.

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TET Exam 2026: Learning on their own

For teachers still preparing to comply, access to study material is uneven. Veni, who teaches at a government school in Cuddalore, says her school doesn't provide textbook links or any material to help with unless well connected. "We need to learn on our own. We have groups and they send us materials, but it is very inconvenient."

Veni added that she has relied on the model question papers on the website. But not everyone has access to the internet in rural areas. She mentioned her sister who is also a government school teacher but based in her village far inside Allaveli has had difficulty accessing study material. Veni said, “ I had to go there and usually getting a holiday is not easy in this job role, I strained myself to help her with everything and she has a button phone which makes it even more difficult for me.”

Veni added, “ My sister had almost lost all hope and these kinds of obstacles make it even harder to earn a decent living and as it is they don’t pay as much in our place, she added.”

Teachers in her position often lean on WhatsApp groups and colleagues to piece together the syllabus and exam pattern which is available online but finding time is its own challenge. "We are already teaching, handling the children and doing all our school work. Finding time separately to prepare is not easy," she says.

Jairam Sundar, a former private-school teacher who is also closely related to parents associations now based in Chennai, argues that the mandate misplaces responsibility. Speaking specifically about teachers with 10 to 12 years of experience, he questions why they are being asked to prove their eligibility after years in the classroom.

"The question is, who recruited them in the first place? If a teacher has been teaching for 10 or 12 years, the system has already assessed them in some way," he says. "Now it's like, prove your worth, to the same students."

He points to an existing shortage of qualified teachers in rural government schools, particularly in the north, and argues the fix belongs upstream, in recruitment and monitoring, not in retrospective testing. "There are already not enough teachers in many rural government schools. If you suddenly put experienced teachers under this kind of pressure, you have to ask what happens to the students," he says.

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"The recruitment process has to be corrected at the source. State-level and district-level authorities have to look at how teachers are recruited and retained."

He concluded, "This TET method is a lazy call to not touch base on all ground levels. It's a mistake [they are] now trying to cover up, and it's putting others under unnecessary stress."

TET Exam: ‘There could be a better way’

Rajasheshwari Mohan, a government school teacher working in Pollachi, Coimbatore, says she doesn't object to being assessed but questions the manner in which the requirement is being imposed on teachers who have already spent years in the profession. "I don't mind being tested. I have crossed a decade in this field. It's the way we are being treated for this," she says.

"We have been teaching for more than 10 years. Our experience, our work with students, everything seems to be overlooked because we now have to clear one exam," Mohan says. "If there is a requirement, there could have been a more practical way of implementing it for experienced teachers."

Krishna, another in-service government school teacher in Velachery, Chennai, echoes that sentiment but focuses on the format of the exam itself. "I understand why they want to test us. I'm not against being tested. But there could be a better way to handle this situation," he says.

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He suggests a remote option like the exam is MCQ-based, he points out, so there's no technical reason it couldn't be administered from home rather than requiring travel to a centre given the recent paper leak as well. "If it is an MCQ test, it could be given at home itself. Why do we have to go somewhere and write it?"

For teachers who have spent years in classrooms, he says being made to physically take an exam like a fresh applicant feels disconnected from their professional standing. "The going and writing part is like we are not in school. I don't know why we are being treated like we are on the other end of the learning paradox."