Faced with abysmal enrolment and quality concerns, there is a need to weed out ‘deadwood’ and look to models like Finland to select and train educators for the 21st century. Implementing SC’s TET order is a critical first step in rebuilding a failing education ecosystem.
By Shahid Shafi Shah
As Pasi Sahlberg, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, has noted, “Academically best students are not necessarily the best teachers. Successful education systems are more concerned about finding the right people to become career-long teachers.”
In India, to strengthen and create a more equitable and inclusive education system, the Right to Education Act was passed in 2009. Section 23 of this Act outlines the qualifications and service conditions for teachers, empowering the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) to set these standards. Among its various requirements is the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) for teachers of classes I to VIII. Initially, the NCTE exempted teachers appointed before 23 August 2010 from this test.
However, in a recent judgment in the Anjuman Ishaat-E-Taleem case, the Supreme Court ruled that TET will be compulsory for in-service teachers with more than five years of service who were appointed before the Act. They must qualify within two years; failure to do so will result in compulsory termination, albeit with terminal benefits. Meanwhile, teachers with less than five years of service remaining are exempt from the test but must qualify for promotion.
Following this judgment, various teacher federations expressed strong opposition. For instance, Showkat Ali Baig, Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Teachers Forum (JKTF), argued that implementing TET has caused widespread anxiety and depression among teaching staff. Similarly, Shah Fayaz, Chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Teachers Association, questioned whether a teacher with thirty years of service would suddenly be deemed incompetent for failing the test.
Undoubtedly, TET has generated anxiety. Yet, before we extend compassion, let us examine the alarming statistics of our government schools. According to the Kashmir Observer, as of May 2024, 4,400 government schools have been closed due to low or zero enrolment. Recent data from the Ministry of Education reveals that, out of 23,173 schools in the Union Territory, 848 have zero enrolment, while 16,179 have fewer than 50 students.
The reasons for this decline are manifold: a lack of quality education, low pupil-teacher ratios, and inadequate infrastructure—including unreliable electricity, classrooms without smart boards or internet connectivity, and poor sanitation facilities. The latter has particularly impacted girls’ enrolment; a study in Bangladesh demonstrated an 11% increase in girls’ attendance following improvements in sanitation.
However, the predominant reason for the abysmally low enrolment, leading to mergers with nearby schools, is the lack of quality education. Tellingly, many government teachers do not enrol their own children in the schools where they teach. Personally, I know several such teachers whose children attend private institutions. This raises serious questions about the quality of education in government schools. While it is unfair to label the entire education ecosystem as “deadwood,” it is certain that it contains more than a few such elements.
If the Jammu and Kashmir government is genuinely committed to strengthening the education sector, it must view this Supreme Court judgment as a beacon of light and implement it without delay. This is a crucial opportunity to transform our education system effectively.
Moreover, we must look beyond TET and learn from systems like Finland’s teacher selection process. As researcher Ramin Izadi notes, aspiring teachers in Finland must pass a rigorous two-stage entrance examination: a written test followed by an aptitude-based interview. Pasi Sahlberg, writing in The Guardian in an article titled “What makes Finnish teachers so special?”, points out that Finnish primary teacher education programmes are so competitive that only one in ten applicants is accepted annually. Those who succeed must then complete five to six years of study before they are permitted to teach.
Such models remind us that sustainable educational reform requires not only evaluating existing teachers but also fundamentally rethinking how we select and train future educators.
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