Irked by what they allege inept handling by the State Advocate General before the Uttarakhand High Court, the agitating Bachelor of Education (B.Ed), Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) qualified Federation has demanded that the State Government should now challenge the Court's decision.
On Tuesday the HC had quashed the recruitment advertisement of 1,891 primary teachers on the ground that the process of recruitment is not as per the guidelines laid down in the Uttarakhand Primary Teacher Service Rules 2012- amended 2013.
The B.Ed. / TET Federation which is agitating for the recruitment in the primary teacher cadre held a protest meeting in front of the Yamuna Colony residence of Education Minister Mantri Prasad Naithani on Thursday. The General Secretary of the Federation Amit Kashyap told The Pioneer that the court based its verdict on Section 15/ 3 of Primary Teacher Service Rules. He claimed that the above mentioned section is for Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed) and BTC qualified candidates and not for the B.Ed / TET qualified candidates. Kashyap said that their case was not properly taken up in the court. The bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia while hearing a petition of Tehri Garhwal resident Keshwanand Ghildiyal said that the process of making merit list for selection of teachers on the basis of year wise seniority of doing teacher's training is not as per the guidelines. The court ordered the government to start the recruitment process afresh as per the guidelines of the teacher's service rules.
The B.Ed / TET federation is on a path of agitation since January 5 this year; its single point demand is that the state government should immediately fill the large number of posts of primary teachers in the government schools. The fact that the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) has clearly directed that the posts of the primary teachers should be filled only by the Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed) qualified youths prompted these youths to start an agitation. There are more than 25,000 B.Ed./TET qualified youths in the state and the directive of the NCTE meant marrying their job prospects.
The agitation of the Federation and the pressure it put on the State Government yielded result too as the Education Department initiated recruitment process for 1,891 posts of primary teachers. The department later added 96, 800 and 389 more posts under backlog quota in this recruitment drive. The decision of HC has now soured the hopes of Government job of thousands of B.Ed/ TET youths of the State.