The Madras High Court has ruled that a directive allowing postgraduate teachers to become headmasters of government high schools based on their experience as graduate teachers is not valid. The court said that graduate teachers, PG teachers, and headmasters belong to different service categories. The decision was made by a bench of justices R Subramanian and K Govindarajan Thilakavadi in response to several petitions. The court said that PG teachers cannot be appointed as headmasters based on their experience as BT assistants, as they belong to a completely different service. Graduate teachers can be promoted to PG teachers or high school principals, while PG teachers can be promoted to headmasters of higher secondary schools.
The court noted that this ruling may cause controversy. In 2015, the state government allowed promoted PGs to become high school headmasters, which led to the issue being brought to court.
