Plea to allow non-B.Ed candidates to sit for TET

SNS, Kolkata, 27 October, 2015: A day after Union HRD minister Smriti Irani announced that non- National Eligibility Test (NET) fellowship schemes will be available for students after meeting with the students of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the agitating SSC candidates in the state said that they will send another memorandum to the HRD minister for giving scope to untrained candidates (who do not have a B.Ed degree) to appear for the TET examination.

According to the agitating SSC candidates, they have sent several memoranda to the Union HRD minister pressing for the demand, but the minister rejected the proposal.

The agitating SSC students claimed that Irani has accepted the non-NET fellowship schemes for the students although University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked them to discontinue the scheme due to lack of transparency and accountability.

They urged that she should look into their demands too.

Recently state education minister Partha Chatterjee had sent a letter to the Union HRD minister for giving scope to the untrained candidates to sit for the TET examination, but the Union government had rejected the proposal.

Significantly, a few months back, Mamata Banerjee had requested Union human resource development minister Irani to take steps towards the appointment of untrained teachers for a while as the state continues to face severe shortage of teachers in its schools.

In her letter to Irani, she also sought a relaxation of the norms which she said was preventing untrained candidates from writing the TET examination.