Demand for investigation into school teachers’ recruitments since 2012

The Hindu: Tamil Nadu: Friday, February 28, 2020.

An association approached Madurai Bench of Madras High Court in 2018 demanding an investigation by the CB-CID wing of Tamil Nadu police

Following revelations about irregularities in the recruitment by Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission, a group of people have demanded investigation into school teachers’ recruitments done by Teachers Recruitment Board through Teachers Eligibility Test since 2012.

Alleging that their demand has been ignored for long despite providing documentary evidence indicating widespread irregularities, they blamed the State government and TRB in particular for trying to mislead Madras High Court as well by withholding information.

M. Ilangovan, coordinator, 2013 TET Qualified Candidates’ Welfare Association, said that neither the TRB nor the School Education Department (SED) has till date released the full list of roughly 21,000 persons appointed in 2012.

“Similarly, they have not provided the details of toppers in exams conducted in 2013, 2014 and 2017. They have evaded replying to a number of requests filed under Right to Information Act for obtaining these details,” he said.

S. Vadivelsundar, president of the association, said that information they have collected so far indicated abnormally high numbers of recruitment from a particular center in Salem in the TET examination conducted in 2013. “Similarly, in the recruitment for Geography teachers in the same year, the majority were from Theni and Dindigul,” he said.

He said that the association has also noticed individual anomalies of persons scoring abysmally low marks in the recruitment for secondary grade teachers, but scoring extremely high marks in the relatively tougher paper on the same subject for the recruitment of graduate teachers.

“We approached Madurai Bench of Madras High Court in 2018 demanding an investigation by the CB-CID wing of Tamil Nadu police. The court asked the TRB and the SED to respond, but they have not done so yet,” Mr. Ilangovan alleged. He said that with the ongoing focus on irregularities in recruitments, they were hopeful that their fresh petition to the TRB would be investigated properly.