The education department’s decision to give additional weightage of 12 marks to the Ad hoc teachers - who earlier were shiksha mitra (SM) - who have passed the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) level 1 and invite open recruitment requisition of teachers on the posts where they were working has shocked hundreds of such teachers working in government schools of the state.

 After clearing the TET level 1, these teachers were hoping that they would be directly absorbed in the primary teacher cadre. The association of ad-hoc teachers also wants that the state government should give some more chances to those ad-hoc teachers who have failed to clear the TET level 1 examination.

 Incidentally, these teachers are drawing salary of a regular assistant teacher (Grade Pay Rs 4200). The state president of Uttarakhand ad-hoc Primary teachers association, Deepak Joshi said that all the ad hoc teachers who have cleared the TET before March 31, 2019 should be merged in the primary teacher cadre without any open examination. He also added that the teachers who have failed to clear TET should be given more chances. He said that the Uttarakhand HC in its order had directed the state government that TET examination should be held two times in a year according to which these teachers should have got nine chances to appear in the TET examination.

The SMs were appointed in the government primary schools on a monthly stipend of Rupees 13000 in the year 2001. To get their services regularized the federation of SMs undertook a long agitation. 

Under pressure of the agitation these teachers were adjusted as primary teachers in education department. The department even imparted  Diploma in elementary education ( DElEd) course to them.

However this decision was challenged in the Uttarakhand HC which ordered that only those teachers who have cleared TET level I are eligible for being primary teachers.

The HC asked the department to give chances to these teachers to clear TET. Out of 3300 such teachers about 1700 teachers were able to clear the TET but rest are yet to clear the barrier.