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The new push by the courts and the government to make the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) mandatory for teachers with more than 10 years of experience is not just a dispute over teaching; it is a serious legal issue. The intent to standardise the quality of primary schools is good and noble, but the way it is implemented is a brutal tool that goes against the Rule of Law. Forcing experienced teachers to take a competitive entrance exam or face termination or “compulsory retirement” is a retroactive imposition that runs counter to the doctrine of legitimate expectation and to the fact that they are already good at their jobs.
The Myth of Standardisation vs. The Truth of Experience
The Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) was created to keep new teachers out of the classroom until they had a certain level of psychological and teaching ability. This is a category error when applied to a teacher with 15 years of experience.
For a veteran teacher, “eligibility” has been evidenced by decades of employment, annual evaluations, and the real growth of hundreds of students. However, demanding a standardised exam to prove ability demeans the fifteen years of professional experience and suggests that professional experience of more than a decade stands nowhere than a three-hour multiple-choice paper.
A Violation of the Rule of Law
In a constitutional democracy, the Rule of Law requires that laws be clear, predictable, and forward-looking. When these teachers were recruited, many years before the Right to Education (RTE) Act of 2009 or the NCTE notification of 2010, they entered into a social and legal agreement with the State. They met eligibility requirements, completed their probation, and settled into a chosen career path.
Retrospective Disqualification: Altering eligibility criteria “after the game has started” is fundamentally arbitrary. Courts have frequently ruled that the State can introduce new criteria, but it cannot retroactively disqualify those who were properly appointed under previous norms.
Doctrine of Legitimate Expectation: Teachers who have been in the job for more than a decade have a “legitimate expectation” that they will continue to work and be promoted under the same terms as when they were hired. A mid- or late-career exam puts their financial security and dignity at risk.
The Human and Systemic Cost
The Supreme Court’s September 2025 decision, which requires TET for all teachers with more than five years of service remaining, has shocked the education sector. In states such as Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, hundreds of thousands of teachers now have two years to meet the requirements or risk being terminated.
This policy creates a “vacuum of experience.” The education system loses its most experienced mentors when many experienced teachers fail to clear the TET, an exam that tests theoretical knowledge still fresh in the minds of university graduates. Thus, we are effectively sacrificing practical experience for theoretical knowledge. Furthermore, for a 50-year-old instructor, taking an exam alongside their former students is not just “cumbersome”; it is a systemic disgrace and humiliation.
The Way Forward: Not Ousting, but Learning New Skills
If the goal is “quality of education,” the answer is not standardised testing but real upskilling. A 10-year veteran does not need a test to demonstrate that they know about child psychology; they need training to learn how to use new digital tools or a new pedagogical framework.
Therefore, the administration needs to make a clear distinction between those who joined the service after the TET mandate and those who were already important parts of the system. Instead of a written test, senior teachers’ eligibility should be based on their service records, students’ success, and participation in Continuous Professional Development (CPD). Taking the seriousness of the matter into account, several state governments have proposed amending the RTE Act to clearly safeguard the employment conditions of teachers hired before the TET framework was established.
Conclusion
You cannot build a great education system on the ashes of teachers’ rights. The State is not raising the bar by making TET retroactive; it is taking away the support of people who have given their lives to the classroom. It is unfair to treat experience as an expired qualification and violates the spirit of justice. The law must take into account the past while also looking to the future.
The Author is a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Management Lucknow.
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