Agartala, Sept 17 (TIWN) Recruitment of over 5,000 teachers in Tripura government’s schools continue to in a complicated loop over the debate of Teachers Eligibility Test (TET), which was made obligatory few years back. As per the guidelines of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, the TET was made mandatory across the country during recruitment of teachers to ensure good quality of teachers and teaching in schools in India.

Tripura education minister Tapan Chakraborty said : “We had requested the union ministry of human resource development (MHRD) to give one time relaxation on TET for this time only to recruit 5,000 teachers for the government schools. When we had initiated the process to recruit 5,000 school teachers and sought application from the unemployed youths in 2002, that time TET was not enforced.”

Talking to reporters the minister said : “The MHRD has recently wanted some clarification from the state government and we replied to those queries. We definitely want TET, but only for this time we sought a one time relaxation.”

Mr Chakraborty said that the delay in recruitment of these teachers (5,000) would greatly harm the teaching in the schools across Tripura.

The hullabaloo over the TET began since last year after state Congress chief Sudip Roy Barman, now leader of the opposition in the state assembly, wrote a letter to the MHRD not to give any let off to Tripura government on the enforcement of the TET in recruitment of school teachers.

“I ad informed the union human resource development minister that the Tripura government was trying to ignore the provision of the RTE. Recruitment of teachers without TET would decline the quality of education,” Barman said clarifying his position.

The Congress leader had said in his letter that the Left Front government did not want to educate the future generation appropriately.

“The Congress party would not compromise with the quality education in Tripura,” Barman said.

Currently, around eight lakh students are now studying in 4,798 schools in Tripura with total number of teachers is 42,219.