The High Court asked the Tamil Nadu government to consider teachers’ concerns over subject-unrelated questions in the Special Teacher Eligibility Test before the next examination.
Chennai: The Madras High Court has advised the Tamil Nadu government to review the examination pattern of the Special Teacher Eligibility Test (Special TET) after government school teachers challenged the inclusion of 60-mark questions from subjects unrelated to their teaching specialisation. While declining to interfere with the recently conducted examination, the court directed the government to consider the issue before the next test.
The Special Teacher Eligibility Test for Secondary Grade Teachers and Middle School Headmasters working in government schools was conducted on July 4 and 5. The examination notification had been issued on February 13. Under the prescribed pattern, the second paper allotted 30 marks each for Tamil, English, Child Development and Pedagogy, while 60 marks were assigned to questions from Mathematics, Science and Social Science.
A group of government school teachers, including petitioner Santhakumar, approached the Madras High Court contending that teachers appointed to teach specific subjects were required to answer questions from unrelated subjects such as Mathematics, Science and Social Science. They argued that the examination pattern placed thousands of teachers at a disadvantage and sought a direction to revise the notification by allocating greater weightage to the subjects taught by individual teachers.
During the hearing before Justice Asha, counsel Maithreyi Chandru, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that teachers qualified in Tamil or English should not be compelled to answer questions from subjects outside their area of expertise. The petitioners argued that such a pattern unfairly affected candidates and did not accurately assess their subject knowledge.
After hearing the submissions, the High Court observed that the petitioners’ grievance appeared to be reasonable. However, the court noted that the petition had been filed at the last minute, making it impractical to alter the examination process that had already been conducted. The court also referred to the Supreme Court’s direction that the Teacher Eligibility Test should be conducted once every six months.
In view of these circumstances, the High Court advised the Tamil Nadu government to examine the teachers’ concerns and issue an appropriate notification before the next Special Teacher Eligibility Test. The ruling does not affect the recently conducted examination but leaves the door open for possible changes to the examination pattern in future TET examinations.
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