Irked by a recent remark by Assam’s Education Minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya, teachers in the state are protesting by prefixing their names with ‘driver’ on their social media handles, taking a page out of the books of BJP leaders and supporters who prefixed theirs with ‘chowkidar’ while campaigning in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.
On June 13, while taking a live question from a teacher in Barpeta on All India Radio, Bhattacharya had said that those teachers who had gotten their teaching certificates more than five years ago need to have their documents renewed, just like driving licenses. For this, they will have to sit for the Teacher’s Eligibility Test (TET) again.
The first general TET exam was held in Assam in 2012. Those who have qualified this exam are eligible to seek employment at government-backed primary schools in the state.
In 2012, over 52,000 people had passed the exam, of which around 26,000 were granted employment in a phased manner, as per a  report. The last exam was held in Assam in 2014 with over 90,000 candidates having cleared heir exam.