Explained: In J&K, not quite the ReT choice

THE JOB

When the scheme was launched, ReTs would get Rs 1,500 per month for the first two years, and Rs 2,000 per month subsequently. Last year, the government increased their salary to Rs 3,000 per month for the entire five years of probation. The jobs were initially non-transferable, and no service benefits were available for five years. Last year, the posts became transferable, and ReTs were allowed service benefits for the first five years.

THE SCANDAL

ReT teachers are selected on the basis of their educational qualification, but without a screening test or interview. Posts are advertised separately for each school. Candidates compete at the level of the village in which the school is situated. The tiny talent pool — especially in far-flung areas — has meant teachers’ jobs for people who have perhaps studied only up to Class 12. Earlier this month, the J&K High Court, while hearing a petition in which a teacher was alleged to have obtained a fake degree, asked the teacher to write an essay, in English and Urdu, on ‘The Cow’, and solve a Class 4 arithmetic problem, and was dismayed to see him fail. It ordered an FIR against the teacher, and directed the government to screen degrees of all ReTs. “This case throws up a startling and classical example of the sale and purchase of degrees, for which many tuck shops were operating in the state. These tuck shops, who have issued the degrees, would be responsible for relegating the student community into the ‘Dark cave of Plato’,” the court observed. “One does not know how many such candidates with such degrees stand appointed as teachers. In this situation, the fate of the state has to be only visualised.”