The demand from the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly to exempt teachers appointed before 1 January 2019 from the Teacher Eligibility Test has brought an emotional and genuinely important issue into public view. At its heart, this is not merely a legal or administrative matter. It is about how a nation treats the men and women who have spent years, often decades, standing in front of classrooms, shaping young minds with limited resources and, in many cases, very little recognition.Since the demand has come through a political resolution, a fair question naturally arises. Should decisions about teacher eligibility and classroom standards be shaped by political bodies at all, or should they be left entirely to educationists, regulators and the judiciary? Education, many argue, works best when it is kept away from political pressure, because policies that shift with every change in government or every election cycle can hurt the long term interests of children and teachers alike. This is a reasonable concern and it deserves honest attention, not dismissal.

At the same time, it would be too simple to say that elected representatives have no role in education. A legislature raising the genuine hardship of thousands of serving teachers is not........

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