Abstract

Teaching has always been one of the most respected profession in the history of mankind. Role of teacher especially during primary and secondary education is vital in nurturing lives and personalities of individuals. This is the reason for which teaching as a profession is valued high in any community. Policy initiatives in past few years have impacted the profession strongly creating suspicion about demoralisation and deprofessionalisation among teachers. Present paper analyses realities around abilities of primary teachers produced in past few years in the context of Techer Eligibility Tests (TET) conducted in the state of Maharashtra. It is observed that percentage of passing candidates in TETs conducted so far has been persistently very low. The declared results of TET 2017 also followed the pattern and shows that percentage of aspirants who could pass the test was only around 4.27 and 2.30 percent respectively for paper I (class first to fifth) and paper II (Class sixth to eighth). This signifies that rest of them will not be considered eligible for employment (if any available) since it is withhold for past seven to eight years in Maharashtra state. This will add up to mass of educated unemployed professionals. Furthermore, impacting badly to first or at the most second generation learners from socially backward and weaker sections of the society specially Scheduled castes and Tribes. Indeed, there is need of taking into consideration the issue of mass unemployment among these professionally trained teachers and taking wise decisions rethinking the policies.

BACKGROUND

Teaching has always been one of the most respected profession in the history of mankind. Hughes (1963) describes profession that delivers esoteric services- advice or action or both to individuals, organisations or government; to whole classes or group of people or to the public at large. Whereas essence of being ‘professional’ is to know better than their clients, what trouble them or their affairs? Teacher helps learner to acquire basic knowledge, skills and competencies. Furthermore, role of a teacher especially during primary and secondary education is vital in nurturing lives and personalities of individuals. It in this context teacher holds important place in the community. It is in this context teacher education which shapes professional development of teachers is issue of concern.

In the context of primary education in India there has been more emphasis on quantitative rising, neglecting qualitative aspects. As remarked by Bajpai and Goyal (2004) with continuous upsurge in the number of schools established at the primary level, thus increasing physical access to schools, the low quality of education provided in these schools remains a critical issue in India’s educational system.

Teacher education in Maharashtra is provided through a certificate level diploma course which is followed by bachelors’ level, and further by master level of education. In the context of primary education Diploma in Teacher Education (D.T.Ed.) or Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El. Ed) is certificate level course in education. It can be pursued after completion of 10+2 level of education. It is observed that in last few decades’ major efforts have been made to establish teaching institutions for producing number of teachers. It is evident from rapid growth of teaching institutions as presently there are around 949 colleges offering DEd course in the state. It has huge intake capacity of 40000 in Government aided and 20000 in private colleges. Thus producing large number of professionally trained teachers for catering teaching needs of the state. Moreover, production of teachers has been given prime importance and concerns for maintaining quality of teaching and even that of trained professionals got lesser focus. As a result, there was a felt need of taking policy efforts towards assuring or at least checking the quality of these trained professionals hence eligibility test was introduced.

Introduction of Teachers Eligibility Test (TET)

TET is introduced as one of the essential qualifications for a person to be eligible for appointment as a teacher in any of the schools referred to in Clause (n) of section 2 of the RTE Act. It is presented with the rationale to improve performance standards of teachers. It is an effort towards bringing national standards and benchmark of teacher quality in the recruitment process, and inducing teacher education institutions and students from these institutions. It has been made necessary qualification for appointment as a teacher in primary schools with notification from National council for Teacher Education as described by CBSE (2016:05).

With notification on 06 march 2013 Maharashtra State government fixed the eligibility criteria for recruitment of primary teachers and made TET mandatory in the state in accordance with RTE Act 2009. It started conducting TET since 2013 known as MAHATET conduced at least once in a year whereas the score is valid for seven years with provision of betterment option. TET exam is conducted as paper 1 and paper 2, where former is for recruitment of teacher for 1^st -5^th standard whereas later is for 6^th– 8^th standard (Government of Maharashtra 2016). Till today four TETs are conducted in the state where TET of 2015 (Third Exam) was victim of malpractices in the form of paper leak (Chaoudhari 2016) and resulted in conducting the re-exam for paper 1. These four TETs are summarised below in the section of analysis and findings.

ANALYSIS and FINIDINGS

MAHATET 2017 exam was conducted on 22^nd July 2017 where over 2.76 lakh aspirants appeared for the TET. This year, of the 1,58,250 candidates who had appeared for the TET in all three mediums about, 4.27 per cent cleared Paper I whereas 2.30 per cent cleared Paper II (Express web desk 2017).

Results of all four TET exams conducted so far in Maharashtra (Table 1) shows that percentage of candidates passing this has been consistently very low i.e. around four percent in paper I and around five percent in paper II. This signifies that more than 95 percent professionally trained and qualified teachers are not eligible for teaching jobs. Other way round it can be presumed that they are not of the bare minimum standard. This scenario objects their competency, capability and quality.

Secondly data (Table 1) about registration shows that there has been persistent reduction in enrolment for the exam suggesting the dropping interest among many trained professionals towards such exams. Hence in the context of compulsion of passing TET for getting permanent teaching jobs proportionally less candidates registering for such exams is need to be explored further as candidates are adding up to total number of qualified teachers every year.

DISCUSSION

The Right to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009 provides a justiciable legal framework that entitles all children between the ages of 6-14 years free and compulsory admission, attendance and completion of elementary education (Department of School education and Literacy 2016). Achieving these entitlements each and every children is absolutely necessary for equitable growth and social justice. However, all these goals are unachievable without ensuring availability of quality teachers and their accountability which is central thread towards achieving universalization of elementary education (Mehrotra 2006).

Towards this TET is a mandatory exam for aspirants who wish to apply for teaching job. Without clearing it, the teachers would not be eligible for a permanent job in teaching, despite securing a Bachelor’s Degree in Education (B Ed) and a Diploma in Education (D Ed). Results of TET exams are consistently very poor objecting credibility of trained teaching professionals. Over a period, interest of these professional towards these exams is reducing (Bansode 2016).

All these so called ineligible candidates (because they failed in TET) would be increasingly adding up to the mass of educated unemployment. They will be either completely jobless if they could afford which has lesser chances or may be undeserving to that of their capacity. The issue of unemployment among these professionals is very crucial considering the investment in terms of assets and time during the period of training. Failure of getting returns may lead to demoralization among them. Furthermore, there are risks of deprofessionalisation due to lack of opportunity to utilise the skills acquired.

Considering the reservation policy applicable in education for various weaker sections of the society majority of the candidates are facing problem of unemployment. As candidates from first or second generation learners mostly from middle and lower socio economic backgrounds bears maximum cost of this market failure. social background plays crucial role in higher education. Professionals from scheduled castes and scheduled tribes already carry burden of label of being incapable and not deserving as coated by Wankhede (2016). It is equally true for this teaching profession, since they get stigmatized though failure in this eligibility test is irrespective of any category. Moreover, these particular groups lose all their resources and get impacted harsh.

CONCLUSION

Realities of teaching professional’s performance through Teacher eligibility tests appears very threatening on first impression. This not only objects professional qualities and abilities of teachers but alarms the issue of mass unemployment among them. Aspiring teaching professionals are carrying the stigma of being ineligible. In this context there is need of analysing these performances against furious growth educational institutions being factories of production of teachers. Where newly aspiring candidates from lower socio economic groups becomes target where they invest their time and energy looking forward better career. Similar to other social problems this impacts badly to weaker sections of the society especially when they belong to first or at the most second generation learners. It is because of less access and knowledge about career options, market dimensions of professional courses and future scope. Considering all this there is need of putting forth wise policy initiatives reducing impact of unemployment and enhancing quality of primary education through monitoring of colleges training teachers.

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