Supreme Court's TET Order Irks UP Teachers, But Yogi Government Is Itself To Blame

After the suicides of two teachers in Uttar Pradesh (UP), Chief Minister (CM) Yogi Adityanath has directed the state's Basic Shiksha Department to file a revision petition against the Supreme Court (SC) order.

Notably, in the 1 September order, the SC had mandated the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) for all teachers, including in-service ones, which created a wave of panic among serving teachers.

The SC set a deadline of two years for all teachers to qualify for the TET exam, and failure to do so would lead to their compulsory retirement.

The looming crisis of job security even compelled two teachers, 49-year-old Manoj Kumar Sahu of Mahoba and 52-year-old Ganeshi Lal of Hamirpur, to commit suicide out of distress, as claimed by their families and teacher associations.

Meanwhile, teacher associations across the state, from Baghpat to Deoria and Chitrakoot to Mau, continued to hold protests against the SC order, submitting memoranda of their demands to local authorities.

One of the key demands was that the Yogi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government should challenge the Supreme Court’s order, similar to Tamil Nadu, which had already announced its decision to file a review petition.

Responding to this demand, CM Yogi, on 16 September, directed the department to file a revision against the SC order regarding the mandatory requirement of TET for serving teachers.

The CM stated that the teachers of the state are experienced and have been provided training from time to time by the government. In such a situation, it is not appropriate to ignore their qualifications and years of service.

While the CM's order comes as solace to worried UP teachers in the TET case, the UP government has a long way to go in satisfying the state teachers and those aspiring for government teaching jobs in the state.

The TET Case

Emphasising the importance of TET as a qualification to ensure quality education under the Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009, the SC ruled that it should apply to both aspiring and in-service teachers.

The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) introduced TET as a compulsory qualification on 29 July 2011 for teachers in Classes 1 to 8 under the RTE Act.

Thus, all teachers recruited after 2011 had passed TET, but prior to this, many teachers were appointed without TET. They have been directed by the SC to clear the exam by 1 September 2027.

Teachers with less than five years until retirement are exempt from taking TET but are ineligible for promotions without it. Teachers of minority institutions are also exempt from TET, as these institutions do not come under RTE.

The ruling impacts an estimated 51 lakh teachers nationwide, including about 20–30 lakh in primary and upper primary levels, with potential extension to crores if private schools are fully included.

In UP alone, it affects lakhs of educators, leading to reported distress and unions calling it "harsh" on veterans, since most of the affected teachers are in their 40s or early 50s.

The Concerns

A UP government school teacher, posted in the Awadh region, told Swarajya, "2.5 lakh teachers are expected to be affected by the decision. The problem is that the requirement of this exam is distant from their day-to-day teaching activities."

The exam might appear challenging for older or experienced teachers who may not have recent academic preparation. The time-bound pattern of the exam, where one gets one minute per question, is also concerning for many veteran teachers.

Another issue is that the teachers have the option to qualify either for the state TET or the Central TET. However, the exam pattern of both the TETs differs so much that this option, instead of giving comfort, creates another confusion.

"The CTET is more focused on teaching methodologies, while the UP TET has more questions from the subjects. The serving teachers are well-versed in only the subjects that they teach, while becoming weak in other subjects, posing a challenge for them," the teacher added.

The third issue is that in the last few years, the success rate in UP TET has drastically reduced, raising concerns. "Even those who prepare full-time for this exam struggle to clear it. One wonders how the working teachers would manage," a protesting teacher from Kaushambi told Swarajya.

In this context, teachers would need to dedicate time to exam preparation, which becomes challenging for teachers of that age, as family responsibilities pile up at that stage of life. In such a scenario, they might utilise their classroom time for preparation, ignoring students' academics.

The students tend to lose in both scenarios. If their teacher prepares for TET during school time, their studies are negatively affected. And if, due to lack of preparation, the teachers fail the exam and are forced to retire, the ideal student-teacher ratio gets disturbed.

Thus, beyond individual hardships of teachers, the TET qualification mandate raises broader systemic concerns. This is especially concerning in UP's case, where teacher recruitment exams are marred by frequent delays.

"There is already a shortage of teachers as older teachers continue to retire, while recruitment exams are delayed. The retirement of a large number of teachers at once will further deepen this crisis," the Awadh government teacher added.

The Previous Delays

UP Secondary Education Service Selection Board (UPSESSB) last conducted the recruitment exam for Trained Graduate Teachers (TGT) and Post Graduate Teachers (PGT) in 2021 and completed the process in 2022.

In 2022, another notification was released for TGT and PGT recruitments, but the exams for it are yet to be conducted, even after being postponed multiple times.

Eventually, the PGT exam was set to be conducted on 18–19 June and the TGT exam on 21–22 July, but they were postponed again. The new dates for the PGT exam are 15–16 October and 18–19 December for the TGT exam.

This means that the PGT and TGT exams would be conducted after a gap of over four years. The other recruitment boards, even the UP Public Service Commission (UPPSC), are no better.

The UPPSC has not conducted the Lecturer Grade Teacher exam in over seven years. It was last conducted in March 2018 and the expected date for the next cycle prelims is in November–December.

Similar is the story of UP's Basic Education Department, which recruits teachers for Classes 1 to 8. It last issued a notification for 69,000 Assistant Teacher posts in December 2018 and conducted the recruitment exam in January 2019.

While the list of selected candidates was released in two parts in October 2020, the allegations that reserved category aspirants were not given their fair share of appointments as per the law brought the matter to court, where it is pending.

UP has not only failed to conduct regular teacher recruitment exams, but also the qualifying exams like TET, which is the root cause of the current issue. Until 2019, UP TET was held annually, but the Covid pandemic and paper leaks disrupted the annual process.

The last UP TET was held in 2022. The notification for UP TET 2025 has been issued and the exam is scheduled for 29–30 January 2026. With the SC verdict, lakhs of aspirants would be eyeing this exam.

Is the SC to be Blamed?

Undoubtedly, it is the SC that has fuelled the TET issue. Not only UP, but there have been nationwide protests by teachers against this judgment that jeopardises their careers.

However, in UP, the situation has been complicated by the Yogi government's own failures. Since the UP TET has not been conducted since 2022, a large number of aspirants are eagerly waiting for the 2026 paper.

A TET aspirant who passed BEd in 2023, told Swarajya, "I have been waiting for the TET exam for a long time. However, now I am concerned about increased competition in this exam because of the involvement of multiple batches of BEd pass-outs, as well as lakhs of serving teachers."

A government teacher who had cleared TET before joining service, told Swarajya, "The judgment gives us a message of being on our toes every time. For now, they are saying that our TET is valid for a lifetime, but who knows, like they change rules every few years, we may also be asked to qualify TET again after a few years."

Apart from creating a threat perception by this judgment, the SC has earlier too interfered with the UP TET, when 4.43 lakh certificates of the 2021 exam were withheld due to legal complications in 2023.

Similarly, the issue of the recruitment of 69,000 assistant teachers is also pending in the SC for over a year, without any visible developments in the case. However, here too, the Yogi government is more to blame.

On 13 August 2024, the Allahabad High Court cancelled the recruitment, acknowledging that the Reservation Act 1994 was not properly followed, and asked the state government to prepare a new list of selected candidates.

However, the UP government moved the SC against this order as it had released another list of 6,800 selected candidates from the reserved category in January 2022 to fulfil the reservation requirements.

The apex court stayed the High Court order on 9 September 2024. But in the following hearings, the state government could not present its case effectively in the court, thus delaying the legal proceedings and keeping the matter pending in the SC.

The Growing Discontent

The teachers affected by the SC stay in the 69,000 assistant teacher recruitment case are regularly protesting against the state government's lackadaisical approach in the SC.

They have met Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya twice in a month, demanding expedited justice. They allege that the Yogi government is deliberately delaying the legal process.

Earlier on 19 August and then on 14 September, the distressed teachers protested outside the Deputy CM's residence, who assured the protesters of directing the department officials for quick redressal.

It is alleged that the case got 23 dates in this one year, but the state's counsel were not present in the court. Protestors also argue that in this one year, the state government could have implemented the High Court order, instead of delaying it further by taking it to the SC.

While the recruited assistant teachers continue to protest as their careers hang in the balance, the protests against the SC's TET judgment have come to a halt after the state government initiated a revision petition against the order.

It remains to be seen what happens in the TET case, but the issue has highlighted the challenges being faced by government job aspirants in UP, especially those eyeing teaching jobs.

An aspirant from eastern UP told Swarajya, "In the last six years, there have been no major teacher recruitment drives in the state. It takes four to five years to complete a single recruitment cycle. Employment is a major issue. Teacher recruitment will play an important role in the 2027 election."

The ball is in Yogi's court now. The UP CM will have to fix the broken recruitment cycle before it gets too late. Expediting the pending recruitments and making way for new teacher recruitment drives can pacify the growing discontent.

CM Yogi appears to have understood this, as reportedly, a plan is being worked upon to recruit two lakh teachers across all levels. The recruitment will be done in three phases, starting from November, as per media reports.