The Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) will on December 29 conduct the preliminary examination for Stream 3 of the Kerala Administrative Service (KAS) for higher secondary teachers who were unable to apply earlier as the earlier rules notified made them ineligible for the same.
The teachers had approached the Kerala Administrative Tribunal, which ruled them eligible for the examination. The commission appealed against the decision in the High Court, which also ruled in their favour. Though the commission moved the Supreme Court, it chose to go by the High Court ruling. Subsequently, the PSC issued an addendum notification on December 1 for the higher secondary teachers to apply in Stream 3, with December 15 as the last date.
PSC officials said around 1,800 applications were received in the latest call. The preliminary examinations for a section of the Stream 3 applicants from Schedule 1 departments, as per the earlier notification, had already been conducted.
The mains exam for Stream 3, including both these categories of applicants, will be held on January 15 and 16 across six centres in the three regions of Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, and Kozhikode.
“Once these exams are completed, the results of the three streams of the KAS will be published. The first recruitments will be made by March. The earlier plan was to begin the recruitment by November this year, but due to the court cases it got delayed,” said a PSC official.
The Stream 1 applicants are direct recruitments in junior scale while the Stream 2 applicants are non-gazetted employees from any government department and Stream 3 is for gazetted employees in Schedule 1 departments. The basic qualification is graduation.
Higher secondary teachers, who are postgraduates, had argued that high school teachers, who are graduates, could apply in Stream 2, while they could not, as they were gazetted employees. In Stream 3 too, they were unable to apply, as the Public Education Department was not considered among the Schedule 1 departments. The PSC had argued that they were excluded due to lack of administrative experience.
The Stream 3 has an upper age limit of 50 for applicants, for Stream 2 it is 40, and 32 for direct recruitment in Stream 1.
