look news india
A historic and much-awaited relief news has emerged for lakhs of candidates dreaming of becoming Trained Graduate Teachers (TGT) in Aided Non-Government Secondary Schools and Government Inter Colleges in Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh Secondary Education Service Selection Board and State Education Service Selection Commission have made major amendments in the eligibility rules for TGT teacher recruitment and the earlier mandatory condition of minimum 45 to 50 percent marks at graduation level has been removed.
After this important policy decision, now all those eligible candidates who have obtained graduation and compulsory training qualification (B.Ed./equivalent), but had less than 50% marks in graduation, will also be able to appear in the upcoming teacher recruitment examinations without any legal or technical hindrance. This decision has given a lifeline to lakhs of unemployed B.Ed degree holders of the state, who used to be left out of the recruitment race due to the difference of just a few percentage marks.
In earlier years, due to some old guidelines of the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) and various state level rules, the provision of making minimum 50 percent marks in graduation mandatory for general and other backward class candidates and 45 percent marks for reserved categories (SC/ST) had remained a subject of controversy. Many candidates had approached the High Court against this rule.
The main argument made in the petitions was that when a candidate has duly passed the graduation degree in the concerned subject and thereafter has successfully obtained the B.Ed. degree by passing higher merit or entrance examination, then it is not justified to deprive him of the main selection examination of teacher recruitment only on the basis of graduation marks. Moreover, due to the strict marking system in many universities, many talented students were not able to touch the 50 per cent mark. In view of various decisions of the High Court and the revised amendments of NCTE, the government decided to remove this discrepancy and bring uniformity in the recruitment rules.
After the implementation of the revised guidelines, the educational qualification outline for TGT recruitment has now become completely clear and accessible:
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Simple Pass in Graduation only: Bachelor’s degree (BA, B.Sc., B.Com etc.) in the relevant subject without any cut-off of minimum marks from a recognized university. That means now just passing will be enough.
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Professional Qualification (B.Ed. Mandatory): Must have Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) or its equivalent LT Diploma from an institute recognized by the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE).
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Subject Combination: Subject combination will remain the most important link in TGT recruitment. For example, for TGT Social Science, any two subjects from History, Geography, Political Science and Economics will be mandatory in graduation. Similarly, for TGT Hindi, the combination of Sanskrit with Hindi in graduation at intermediate or graduation level will remain the same.
This rule amendment will give a new boost to the careers of lakhs of youth of Uttar Pradesh:
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Benefits to rural and old students: Students who graduated through the annual system many decades ago found it extremely difficult to score more than 50% marks. Thousands of such old B.Ed holders will now be able to participate in mainstream recruitment again.
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Stopping unnecessary lawsuits: In earlier recruitments, after the advertisement was released, dozens of petitions were filed in the court regarding the requirement of marks, due to which the recruitment process got stuck for years. Now the selection process will be transparent and dispute free.
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Wide opportunities for talent: The main criterion for teacher selection will now be the performance in the competitive written examination (CBT/OMR Written Exam), and not the decades-old college marks.
This new rule will be fully implemented in the upcoming TGT recruitments to be advertised by Uttar Pradesh Education Service Selection Commission. Due to this, there will be a significant increase in the number of applicants in the upcoming examinations, which will make the level of competition even tougher.
Experts say that candidates should now stop worrying about academic marks and focus on the main exam syllabus of the selection board, depth of the concerned subject and strong practice of General Studies. The Commission will soon make public a detailed clarification notification in this regard on the official website, which will completely eliminate every doubt left in the minds of the candidates.