Over 50 members of the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) Passed Candidates Welfare Association staged a protest on the Collectorate premises in Dindigul on Monday. They were protesting against the State government’s move to fill up vacancies for teachers with temporary appointments.
They urged the government to to fill up vacant posts of Secondary Grade Teachers, BT Assistants and Postgraduate Teachers by employing candidates who have passed TET in 2013.
This comes after the order issued on June 23 by the Commissioner of School Education asking to Chief Educational Officers in each district to fill up vacancies in the aforementioned posts across the State.
They said that there were more than 30,000 candidates who have passed the TET and are awaiting permanent jobs for nine years. Speaking to press persons, Murugeshwari, a member of the association, said that she had cleared both Paper I and Paper II twice in 2013 and 2017 to secure a better score and still has not been given a job.
She alleged that the number given by School Education Minister that 80,000 candidates have passed the TET is false because there were irregularities in the counting as the same person appeared for the exam twice. “When there are thousands who have cleared the exam and are ready for appointment, why would the State want to conduct another exam or recruit temporary teachers and on what basis?,” she said.
The members opposed the criteria to take up an ’appointment test’ for candidates who had passed TET to secure a job as per G.O. 149 issued in 2018 by the former government AIADMK. The protesters in their petition pointed out that the DMK party’s election manifesto promised to cancel the G.O. and give jobs to the candidates who have passed TET in 2013, 2017 and 2019.
The Madurai chapter of the association had filed a petition before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in this regard and demanded that the recruitment process must be put on hold until a verdict is given, said S. K. Senthil Kumar, deputy coordinator.
The members had submitted a petition to Collector S. Visakan and Chief Educational Officer A. Nasarudeen.
