The Forum of Registered Teachers Organisations (FORTO) has urged the Central and State governments to exempt teachers from the mandatory Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) requirement if they were appointed legally under the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) qualifications and State recruitment rules that were in force at the time of their appointment.

The demand was made at a round-table conference held in Vijayawada on Sunday under the chairmanship of FORTO working president D. Srinu, with working general secretary Maganti Srinivasa Rao coordinating the meeting.

The forum leaders cited an NCTE clarification dated August 28, 2017, which stated that NCTE had not prescribed minimum qualifications before September 3, 2001, and that State recruitment rules governed teacher appointments during that period. They argued that applying TET norms introduced after the Right to Education (RTE) Act to teachers who were already appointed legally would be unjust and retrospective in nature.

The leaders noted that many teachers had served for decades and had continuously upgraded their professional skills through in-service training programmes, DIKSHA courses, cluster-level training and other professional development initiatives, demonstrating their teaching competence.

FORTO appealed to the governments to take appropriate legal and policy measures to safeguard the service rights of such teachers. Several leaders of FORTO-affiliated organisations participated in the meeting and supported the demand.