Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal announced today that the Government has decided to extend the validity period of the Teachers Eligibility Test qualifying certificate. From now on the validity of the certificates will increase from 7 years to lifetime with retrospective effect from 2011.
Mr. Pokhriyal said, "This will be a positive step in increasing the employment opportunities for candidates aspiring to make a career in the teaching field."
Ramesh Pokhriyal also added that the respective state government and union territories will take necessary action to revalidate or freshly issue TET certificates to those candidates whose period of 7 years has already ended.
The change of certificate termination has been made to the guidelines of February 11, 2011, of the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) that laid down stating TET would be conducted by the state governments and the validity of the TET Certificate was 7 years from the date of the candidate passing the TET exam.
Teachers' Eligibility Test has now become one of the essential qualifications for a person to be eligible for appointment as a teacher in schools. Although the validity of the TET pass certificate was for 7 years, earlier, there was no restriction on the number of attempts a person can take for acquiring a TET certificate. One who qualified in the exam was allowed to appear again to improve their score.