Hundreds of candidates who have cleared the TET (teachers eligility test) on Monday staged a protest in Gandhinagar demanding that the Gujarat Government should fill 18,000 posts instead of calling for just 3,300 posts and stop the “visiting teacher” system immediately.
Complaining about the severe shortage of teachers across the State, hundreds out of as many as 1.8 lakh candidates who had cleared the TET 1 and TET 2 level tests staged a protest at the G-4 Vista Garden in the State Capital.
However, the police detained some 200 of them soon after their rally started. They were whisked away in police vehicles to the Gandhinagar Superintendent of Police’s office in Sector 28.
The candidates pointed out that the State Government has not been conducting the recruitment process according to the recruitment calender and instead of appointing 12,500 teachers, it had called for only 3,300 posts. They also pointed out that this recruitment of 3,300 posts are of 2018 and no appointment process was conducted since then. The agitating candidates have even drawn the attention of Gujarat BJP president CR Paatil over the issue.
Among the aggrieved candidates, Ajit Makwana, told Vibes of India that, “Despite being a gold medalist in Gujarati subject, I am unemployed. Our demand to the government is only one that recruitment should be done according to the recruitment calendar, 18,000 posts should be issued and not just 3,300 posts and the practice of traveling teachers should be stopped. The date of merit has also been fixed by the government.”
They have threatened to intensify their agitation across Gujarat if their demands were not fulfilled at the earliest.
Another candidate, Nilesh Baria, told Vibes of India that the current number of candidates who passed TET 1/2 is 1,80,000, and the government has only allocated 3,300 seats. “This recruitment is for 2018, which was announced by the then Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama. Recruitment has not been done according to the rules since the,” Baria said.
According to the rules under the Right To Education, 3,300 teachers should be recruited every year and out of these 1,300 should be recruited in 1st to 5th and 2,000 teachers in 6th to 8th standards. Besides this, the TET pass results are now valid for lifetime against five years earlier. Going by this, the number of aspirants has risen to 1.8 lakh posts. In this case, instead of recruiting 12,500 teachers, the government has recruited only 3,300.
