Examiner Bureau | Srinagar:
The Jammu and Kashmir Government will on Tuesday move a resolution in the Legislative Assembly seeking exemption from the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) for teachers appointed before January 1, 2019.
According to the Assembly’s list of business, School Education Minister Sakina Masood Ittoo will move the resolution, urging the Union Government to make a statutory amendment to Section 23 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009.
The proposed resolution seeks exemption for all teachers appointed before January 1, 2019, and calls upon the Centre to take the necessary legal steps and issue the requisite notification through the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).
The move comes against the backdrop of the RTE framework under which TET was prescribed as one of the minimum qualifications for appointment as teachers for Classes I to VIII. The NCTE first issued TET guidelines in 2011, with subsequent amendments in 2013, 2014 and 2021.
Under the NCTE’s TET guidelines, the examination is intended to establish a common benchmark for teacher quality. The guidelines provide that a candidate scoring 60 per cent or more is considered to have qualified the TET, while concessions may be provided to reserved categories in accordance with applicable policies.
The J&K resolution, however, is a request to the Union Government for a specific statutory exemption for teachers appointed before the proposed cut-off date; it does not itself amend the central law.
Separately, Minister for Cooperatives Javaid Ahmad Dar is scheduled to move L.A. Bill No. 9 of 2026, seeking amendments to the Jammu and Kashmir Cooperative Societies Act, 1989.
The legislation proposes to repeal the Jammu and Kashmir Self-Reliant Cooperative Act, 1999 and provide transitional arrangements for cooperatives currently governed under that law to come under the 1989 Act. The Bill was already published in an extraordinary issue of the Official Gazette and was introduced in the Assembly on Monday.
The proposed changes form part of the legislative business of the seven-sitting Autumn Session of the J&K Assembly, which began on September 21 and is scheduled to continue until September 30.
The Assembly is also dealing with other major matters during the session, including the presentation of a House Committee report on alleged irregularities in the implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in Jammu and Kashmir.
