Kerala: no appointment approval, promotion for teachers without K-TET

Kerala's General Education Department has issued an order saying teachers who do not hold the Kerala Teacher Eligibility Test (K-TET) qualification will not be given appointment approval or promotion, according to reports published on Thursday, October 29, 2026. The department has said further steps will follow only after there is clarity on the petition the state has before the Supreme Court. Candidates who have received advice memos from the Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) but lack K-TET will be given provisional appointments, and the earlier order exempting schools with minority status is reported to remain in force.

Appointment approval is the step that turns a teacher's selection into a sanctioned post with regular salary, particularly in Kerala's large aided-school sector, where school managements appoint teachers and the government pays them. Without approval, a newly appointed teacher can work for months without a settled pay scale. Promotion to posts such as headmaster or high school teacher by transfer also depends on approval from the department. The new order therefore affects both the newest entrants to the profession and senior teachers waiting to move up.

The order is the latest turn in a long dispute that began with a Supreme Court verdict of September 1, 2025, which held that a teacher eligibility test is required for appointment and for teachers already in service, and rejected earlier relaxations. Kerala first issued an order to implement the ruling, then froze it in January 2026 after protests by teachers' organisations, and filed a review petition in the Supreme Court. In February 2026, the state granted conditional approval to aided-school teachers appointed before September 1, 2025 who held equivalent qualifications such as NET, SET, MPhil or PhD. When it disposed of the review petitions, the court extended the deadline for serving teachers to acquire the qualification to 2028.

K-TET has separate categories for different levels of school. Category I is the requirement for lower primary teachers and Category II for upper primary, while Category III is linked to high school posts and to promotion as headmaster. For teachers who have not cleared the relevant category, the message of the new order is that approval and promotion will wait until they do, or until the court gives the state further room.

Minority-status schools are treated differently. In August 2026, the department ordered that K-TET would not be mandatory for appointments and promotions in minority-status aided and unaided schools, pending a final decision by a larger bench of the Supreme Court on how the eligibility rule applies to minority institutions. Reports on the new order say that exemption continues.

Short-term: Teachers in government and aided schools who lack K-TET will see approvals and promotions held back. Managements of aided schools may have to wait before filling vacancies with teachers who have not yet cleared the test. PSC-advised candidates can still join service, but only provisionally.

Long-term: The order pushes in-service teachers to clear K-TET well before the September 1, 2028 deadline. The final shape of the rule will depend on how the Supreme Court responds to Kerala's petition and on the larger bench's decision on minority institutions. For students, the stated aim of the eligibility rule is a minimum, tested standard for every classroom teacher.

Who is affected: Teachers in Kerala's government and aided schools who do not hold K-TET; teachers awaiting promotion as headmasters or by transfer to higher posts; PSC-advised candidates; aided-school managements; and, indirectly, students in schools where posts stay vacant or temporary.

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