Kumari Palany & Co

Education experts: TET is no assurance for high-quality faculty

Posted on: 15/Apr/2017 12:10:40 PM
A pass in TET (Teachers Eligibility Test) was made compulsory to be appointed as school teachers by the state government department of education.

However, due to legal cases, TET which was conducted every year, was stopped for the last 4 years. It is all set to be resumed now.

Meanwhile, quashing the orders of the department of education, the Chennai High Court ordered that the teachers who had joined before November 2011 (before TET pass was made compulsory) need not have to write TET to continue working.

However, there are still various issues about TET.

· Education experts observe that a pass in TET is not a guarantee regarding the teaching quality of the faculty.

· TET system lacks comprehensive assessment process.

· TET is deficient in assessing the teachers.

Observations:

· The general secretary of the State Platform for Common School System observes that TET has 30-mark sections in subjects like science, language and psychology. This does not test for anything beyond static, factual knowledge. There is no aptitude or attitude-based appraisal, crucial for a teacher to handle a class of young students. Thus, this does not bring in an eligible candidate into the schooling system, only someone who has studied the textbook.

· As regards B. Ed. Courses, the curriculum (a must for teacher aspirants) is also not up-to-date and exhaustive enough for a graduate of the programme to come out as a potentially skilled faculty.

· There is a `weightage system` actively pushed by the state for schools in the process of recruiting teachers. This means that beyond TET scores, a candidate would be given preference for any added qualification -years of experience, diplomas, certificates, etc.

· The correspondent of the NSN group of schools in Chennai Metro observed that we have to remember that we are teaching the Google generation. But we find many candidates with MPhil and MSc lacking in basic communication skills.