JBT candidates get interim relief from High Court
Naina Mishra
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, October 26
The Education Department has decided to contest the interim orders issued in favour of Junior Basic Training (JBT) candidates by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday.
The High Court ordered that the application forms of the petitioners should be accepted and they would participate in the selection process subject to clearance of the Central Teachers Eligibility Test (CTET) exam which would be held in December this year.
The JBT candidates applying for the 418 posts advertised by the Education Department had filed a petition in the court and sought exemption from clearing the CTET exam which has not been held for the last two years.
The Samagra Shiksha Society had invited online applications for the post of JBT teachers from October 10 to November 1.
The Education Department had issued a notification on October 23 stating that it would not dilute the CTET clause. “Some of the candidates have approached the society with a request to allow them to apply provisionally for the post, subject to qualifying the CTET-2018 exam. The candidates should be in possession of all the prescribed qualification on the crucial date as notified in the advertisement issued in this regard,” reads the notice.
BL Sharma, Education Secretary, while talking to The Tribune said, “We will contest and file a reply to the best of our knowledge that the candidates should be in the possession of qualification as on the crucial date. This, in my view, is the law and I will get it verified from law officers.”
Arvind Rana, president, Association of SSA/RMSA Teachers of India said, “As per the RTE Act 2009 and Central RTE Rules 2010, the National Council for Teacher Education ( NCTE) fixes qualification criteria for teachers and one of the condition for becoming a schoolteacher is the CTET exam.”
He said, “The NCTE had made the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as an academic authority to conduct the CTET exam at least twice in a year. Later, this was changed to once in a year. However, in this case, the CBSE did not conduct the CTET exam from 2016. As a result, the DElEd and BEd pass candidates of 2016, 2017 and 2018 could not appear in any recruitment process. This violates their right to equal opportunity.”
