The Centre on Tuesday decided to extend the validity of the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) qualifying certificates from seven years to a lifetime, fulfilling a long-standing demand from the teaching community.
The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) had made a recommendation to this effect in September last year.
“The respective state governments/UTs will take necessary action to revalidate/issue fresh TET certificates to those candidates whose period of 7 years has already elapsed,” Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said.
The TET is one of the essential qualifications for a person to be eligible for an appointment as teacher in schools.
According to the NCTE Guidelines issued on February 11, 2011 the state governments were mandated to conduct the TET and issue certificates with a validity of seven years from the date of passing of the test.
The NCTE is tasked to achieve planned and coordinated development of the teacher education system throughout the country, the regulation and proper maintenance of norms and standards.
The mandate given to the NCTE covers the whole gamut of teacher education programmes including research and training of persons for equipping them to teach at pre-primary, primary, secondary and senior secondary stages in schools, and non-formal education, part-time education, adult education and distance (correspondence) education courses.