At a time when there is an ongoing debate about the urgent need to restructure the teacher education programmes in the country, would-be teachers in schools will now have to write an eligibility test conducted by either the Centre or the State governments before getting an appointment letter.
Called the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) this examination is external and additional to any other qualification that an aspiring teacher would have. According to a National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) document (this can be accessed at the web site www.ncte-india.org) the rationale for the TET is
It would bring national standards and benchmark of teacher quality in the recruitment process.
It would induce teacher education institutions and students from these institutions to further improve their performance standards
It would send a positive signal to all stakeholders that the government lays special emphasis on teacher quality.
The TET would be conducted by a “suitable professional body” designated by the government concerned. All questions would in the MCQ mode, and each will fetch one mark. There would be four alternatives given out of which one would be the correct answer. There would be no negative marking in TET.
Papers
Those wishing to get appointed as teachers for Classes I -V would have to appear only for paper one of TET. This one-and-a-half-hour examination would have 30 questions each on Child Development and Pedagogy, language-1, language-2, mathematics and environmental studies.
Questions in Child Development and Pedagogy would be all about the “educational psychology of teaching and learning relevant to the age group 6-11 years,” the NCTE document notes, “They will focus on understanding the characteristics and needs of diverse learners, interaction with learners and the attributes and qualities of a good facilitator of learning.”
The ‘language-1' questions would focus on the proficiencies related to the medium of instruction in each State.
Language-2 will have questions from among the list of languages prescribed in the application form.
The questions on mathematics and environmental studies would give emphasis on the “concepts, problems solving abilities and pedagogical understanding of the subjects.” The questions would be evenly distributed over the syllabi prescribed by the respective governments.
For those wishing to get appointed as teachers in classes six to eight TET paper-2 is the examination to take. Here, it is compulsory to answer the questions on child development and on the two language options. For the math and science teacher there would be sixty MCQs of one mark each, for the social sciences teacher there would be sixty MCQs of one mark each. Other teachers can answer either the mathematics set or the social sciences set. The question papers shall be bilingual; in English and in a language decided by the State government.
Those who wish to be considered for appointment to any class from one to eight would have to appear for both paper one and two of the TET.
Minimum marks
Only a person who scored 60 per cent or more would be deemed to have passed the TET. Though weight should be given to TET scores during the recruitment process, the NCTE document also makes it clear that passing the TET is only an eligibility criteria and that it does not imply a right to get appointed.
The NCTE has recommended that TET be conducted at least once a year. Each government can decide the validity of a TET; in any case this should not exceed seven years.
Certificate
Each successful candidate shall be given a TET certificate which would incorporate adequate security features and would be electronically generated.
The current thinking is to make TET optional for serving teachers. However, they would be encouraged to write TET just to see where they stand on the skills scale.
