Around 6 lakh candidates are set to appear for the Tamil Nadu Teachers Eligibility Test (TNTET) across the State on Saturday and Sunday. The exam is being conducted in the State after a gap of two years.

Two tests

Secondary grade teachers who handle classes I to V will appear for TNTET Paper 1 which will be on June 8 and graduate teachers who handle classes VI and above will have to take up Paper 2 which is on June 9.

In Chennai, Paper I will be conducted in 28 centres and Paper 2 in 60 centres.

The candidates who will be taking up the exam include the 1,500 teachers recruited after October 2010 to government-aided schools in the State who have not cleared the exam.

One last chance

The Director of the School Education had issued a circular in April stating that despite TNTET been conducted four times from 2010, the teachers didn’t take it up. However, they have been given one last shot at taking the exam.

“For years now, we have been appealing for tweaking the syllabus so that teachers will have more portions from their subject of specialisation in the exam. In Paper 2, I only have 30 marks for Mathematics which is my main subject. This is extremely less for a paper which is tough,” said V. Lakshmi, a teacher from Chennai. Apart from Mathematics, her paper will have Child Pedagogy and Development, Tamil, English and Science.

The School Education Department had organised a 10-day training programmes for the 1,500 teachers.

‘Training not effective’

“This was not too effective. For teachers taking up Paper 2, we’ll have to look through topics from Class VI to X which is vast and as a Science teacher, I am already at a disadvantage since I have only 30 marks for my subject”, said a teacher.

The exam will be conducted from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on both days.

According to the Right to Education (RTE) Act, the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) guidelines specify that that the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) would be a requirement for appointment as a teacher.