Teacher Eligibility Test results out, only 5 per cent qualify
Revealing the abysmal plight of teacher education in the state, only around five per cent candidates have qualified as the much-awaited results of Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) that were declared on Friday. Candidates belonging to backward classes have done better than the open category students.A total of 3, 67, 896 candidates appeared for paper one (for D.Ed qualified) and 2, 24, 094 appeared for paper two (for B.Ed qualified). Only 4.43 per cent (paper one) and 5.95 per cent (paper two) candidates have qualified. The worst performance is in English and Urdu medium papers as paper one and two combined the qualifying percentage is 1.99 and 1.78 .
In the paper one and two combined results, candidates belonging to backward classes and those in the differently-abled category have outshone their open category counterparts. As per the results, 4.14 per cent and 4.503 per cent BC and disabled students have qualified TET in comparison to only 2.135 per cent in open category. The candidates had to score at least 59.5 per cent (for open category) and 54.5 (for backward caste and disabled category) to qualify.
The exam was held in Marathi, English and Urdu mediums. As per the Right to Education Act, 2009, all states have to mandatorily conduct TET for recruitment of teachers to all types of schools. This was the first exam conducted by Maharashtra. Only candidates who have qualified the TET will be eligible for teaching jobs henceforth.
“This shows the dismal state of teacher education in the state. The syllabus for the exam was for paper one the syllabus was from classes I-V and for paper two it was from class VI-VIII. If candidates can’t even score 60 per cent in the exam, what were they going to teach the students?,” said an education official who did not wish to be named. “The initial proposal was to hold TET even for the existing teachers but they protested and the exam was made compulsory only for future candidates. But if the exam was held even for the existing teachers, the plight of primary education in the state would have been revealed,” he added.
NK Jarag, director of State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), conceded that the quality of teaching in the D.Ed and B.Ed colleges of the state was abysmal. “There are so many D.Ed and B.Ed colleges in the state and the standard of teaching is low. The institutes should check how many of their students have qualified and then decide whether they should even operate or not,” said Jarag.
The grievance redressal period for the students is till March 23. They have to visit the website and if there is a problem with their result, they have to fill in the prescribed form and submit it to the examination council. The results will be declared in the near
News Source / Sabhaar : indianexpress.com (10.03.2014)
