Special DSC notification confuses aspirants in Andhra Pradesh

Vijayawada: The Special DSC recruitment notification, relea-sed by the state government for Teacher Eligibility Test-Cum-Teacher Recruitment Test (TET-Cum-TRT), for the posts of school assistants (special ed-ucation) under Inclusive Education for Disabled at Secondary Stage (IEDSS), under the Andhra Pradesh Samagra Shiksha Scheme (SMS), has been creating confusion among the candidates.

The state government had released the notification on February 15 and fr-om February 25 to March 11, the school education department has allowed to apply for the test online.

Shockingly, the aspirants do not have any column to enter their previous eligibility details of Teacher Eligibility Test (TET), which can be applied for seven years, after gaining the eligibility. Around 2,500 candidates had alr-eady qualified for the TET earlier. Hence, they have been demanding to consider their previous eligibility for the IEDSS test.

The Union government had initiated and sanctioned the grants for 1,424 posts in the year 2012, be-fore the bifurcation of the Telugu state. The AP government had released the notification recently, after a long gap of seven years.

Around 1,320 teachers have been working with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan as Inclusive Education Resource Teachers (IERT) si-nce the past 11 to 17 years. To add to this, there are around 3,000 unemployed youth across the state, with quilting degrees.

An IERT Teacher of Ma-chilipatnam, Paruchuri Vanaja said: “I passed TET in the year 2018 and I have eligibility till 2025 to att-empt the TET-cum-TRT again. In this test, the department is not considering the previous eligibility. It will create an impact on around 50 per cent of the applicants,” Vanaja told this newspaper.

IERT teachers, who have been working since a long time, are getting lost with this notification, due to late release. All of them have been urging the government to consider them without age restriction.

An IERT teacher of Gudivada, M.K. Neelambaram, said: “I have been working under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan at Gudivada since the past 11 years as an IERT teacher and now I am not eligible for the Special DSC, as my age is 51”.

Mr Neelambaram further said that the test had to be announced in the year 2012 but was not done so.

“Due to the negligence of the government and the school education department, almost 250 candidates are losing a good future,” he added.

The syllabus announced for the test has also been creating tension among the aspirants. Speaking to this newspaper, IERT association state convener M. Veeraiah Naik stated that the syllabus announced by the government is an injustice. “We have completed our specialisation in one subject such as Hearing Impairment, Mental Reta-rdation and Visual Impair-ment, Learning Disability, Cerebral Palsy and Auti-sm. But the syllabus incl-udes all the subjects which are not prepared by the candidates. We urge the government to solve all the problems in the Special DSC and conduct the test,” he added.