The Madras High Court on Wednesday made it clear that the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) stipulated by the National Council for Teachers Education (NCTE) cannot be made applicable to minority institutions.
A Division Bench of Justices Huluvadi G. Ramesh and M.V. Muralidharan passed the direction on a batch of writ petitions moved by minority institutions challenging a Government Order mandating TET to teachers of minority institutions, and an appeal moved by the State government assailing the order of a single judge directing the State educational authorities to grant temporary approval to minority institutions for a period of five years to pay the salary for the teachers employed by them who failed to qualify in TET.
In 2011, the State passed a Government Order mandating the teachers of government, government aided, and minority schools to clear TET to be considered eligible to continue in service. In view of the order, the educational authorities were instructed to cancel the appointment orders of teachers made on or after November 2011 who failed to qualify the test.
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When the pleas came up for hearing, the government submitted that there should not be any discrimination among the teachers working in non-minority and minority schools. Refusing to concur, the Bench noted that the government cannot take shelter under the guise of discrimination.