U’khand to file review petition in SC on TET compulsion for primary teachers

 PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/ Dehradun

The Uttarakhand government will file a review petition in the Supreme Court against its order in which clearance of Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) level I examination has been made mandatory for all the primary school teachers.  A decision in this regard was taken in the meeting of the State cabinet chaired by the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday.  The SC order had put a question mark over the fate of more than 17,000 government school teachers in Uttarakhand.

An SC bench comprising justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Manmohan had passed the order on September 1 this year. The bench also held that those in-service teachers having less than five years of service left will not have compulsion of TET examination clearance. However, for promotion, they should clear the TET, the bench ordered. The court set up a time period of two years in which all serving teachers will have to clear the TET level I examination.  The teachers failing to clear the aforesaid examination within two years will have to tender their resignation from the service.

After the SC order, thousands of serving primary school teachers were left with no choice but to clear TET level one examination conducted by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) within a period of two years. 

The State president of Uttarakhand Prathmik Shikshak Sangh, Govind Singh Vohra expressed happiness at the cabinet decision. “I on behalf of all the primary teachers affected by the SC decision express gratitude to the CM, Education minister Dhan Singh Rawat and the cabinet,’’ he said.