T.N. to move SC over TET judgment, says School Education Minister

The State government on Thursday said it will file a review petition in the Supreme Court regarding the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) judgment.

The government supported the principle that teacher quality should be continuously improved, School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi said, adding, “TET should remain a compulsory requirement for future appointments; the retrospective application of this requirement to teachers who were already in service has created a grave concern.”

The Supreme Court had recently directed that all in-service teachers who do not possess the TET qualification should acquire it within two years. If they fail to do so, they would face compulsory retirement with terminal benefits. Teachers with less than five years of service left have been allowed to continue till retirement, but without eligibility for promotion.

Various teachers’ associations in Tamil Nadu had urged the government to take action as the judgment affected over one lakh teachers appointed before 2011. The Minister recently held a review meeting with teachers’ associations in the wake of the Supreme Court’s order.

In a post on X, Mr. Mahesh said the ruling, if implemented in its present form, will cause mass compulsory retirements, leaving schools across Tamil Nadu with a crippling shortage of teachers. It will be practically impossible to recruit or train an equivalent number of TET-qualified teachers in the short time frame, he added.

The review petition will be filed on the grounds of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, under Section 23, which regulates minimum qualifications only for new appointments. It does not authorise compulsory retirement of teachers already in service. The NCTE notification of August 23, 2010, which introduced TET, states that its provisions would not apply to teachers already appointed prior to that date. A retrospective application of TET unsettles vested rights of lawfully appointed teachers, causes disproportionate hardship, and threatens the stability of the education system, the Minister said. “The review petition seeks to strike this balance by protecting the livelihoods and service rights of in-service teachers, while maintaining strict compliance with TET for all future appointments,” he added.

Welcoming the move, Tamil Nadu Post Graduate Teachers’ Association general secretary S. Prabhakaran said, “We hope the outcome will be favourable to us as over two lakh teachers will be affected if the judgment is followed.”