AP Govt amends Teacher Eligibility Test guidelines

Amaravati: The State government amended the guidelines for conducting Andhra Pradesh State Teacher Eligibility Test (AP-TET) under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), 2009 on Friday and released an order in this regard.

The new amendment allows any graduate with at least 50 per cent marks and pass in Bachelor of Education(B Ed) course or Bachelor of Education (B Ed - Special Education). In case of SC or ST or BC or differently-abled candidates, the minimum marks shall be 40 per cent. 

The words “BA or B Sc or B Com,” shall be substituted with the words “any graduation,” in the guidelines. In the minimum qualification for AP-TET Paper -3 (language teachers), graduation with language concerned as one of the optional subjects (OR), Bachelor of Oriental Language (or its equivalent) (OR), graduation in literature (OR) post-graduation in language concerned and Language Pandit Training Certificate or B Ed with language concerned as one of the methodologies, in respect of language teachers, will be allowed.

So far, as per the existing guidelines, there will be two papers for TET, Paper-I will be for a person who intends to be a teacher for classes I to V, Paper-II will be for a person who intends to be a teacher for classes VI to VIII. A person who intends to be a teacher either for classes I to V or for classes VI to VIII shall have to appear in both Papers (Paper I and Paper II).

Changing this, the new guidelines issued by substituting the following para, which include, there will be three papers for TET.  Paper-I will be for a person who intends to be a teacher for classes I to V; Paper-II will be for a person who intends to be a teacher for classes VI to VIII; Paper-III will be for a person who intends to be a language teacher. 

A person who intends to be a teacher either for classes I to V or for classes VI to VIII shall have to appear in Paper-I & Paper II.   From here after, the Paper III will have 150 multiple choice questions (MCQs) with 150 marks and will be allowed to answer these questions within 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Thirty questions on child development and pedagogy & teacher aptitude, 30 questions on Language 1 and another 30 on Language 2 and 60 questions on Telugu, Hindi, Urdu, English, Kannada, Tamil, Oriya, Marathi and Sanskrit.