CHENNAI: School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi on Friday said that he would take representatives of teachers’ associations to meet Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to seek relief from the Supreme Court’s recent judgment, which made the Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET) mandatory for all in-service teachers handling classes 1 to 8.
He added that he will meet Chief Minister MK Stalin on Saturday to decide on the next course of action.
According to the representatives from the teachers association, the minister, along with MP P Wilson, is expected to discuss the possibility of bringing a state-level legislation to exempt in-service teachers from TET.
The minister has assured that the DMK will raise the issue in Parliament, the association members said.
Anbil Mahesh, along with senior officials of the school education department, had held a consultation meeting with more than 55 teachers’ association representatives at the Professor Anbazhagan Education Complex in Nungambakkam.
The meeting was convened a month after the Tamil Nadu’s Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) issued a notification on November 19 to conduct a special TET for in-service teachers, but withdrew it the same day.
Sources said the teachers’ associations are likely to press for legislation exempting teachers who are already working in government and government-aided schools from the mandatory test in the meeting with the union minister.
The state government has also filed a petition before the SC seeking a review of the judgment.
During the meeting, teachers’ associations put forward several demands, including reducing the qualifying marks in TET, permitting secondary grade teachers to appear for TET Paper II (the eligibility test for graduate teachers) if they wish, awarding weightage marks based on years of experience, providing training by SCERT and ensuring that a larger share of questions are drawn from the subjects they actually teach.
The story is reported by Subashini Vijayakumar for The New Indian Express
