Application for a Teaching Job

What is a Teaching Job Application?

A teaching job application is the covering letter you send a school for a teacher’s post — PRT, TGT or PGT — setting out your degrees, your B.Ed. or D.El.Ed., your Teacher Eligibility Test result and your classroom experience. A school shortlists from this letter and the CV behind it. If the letter does not name the post and subject, or leaves out the eligibility the advertisement asked for, it can be set aside before anyone opens your CV.

Fresh B.Ed. and D.El.Ed. graduates use it for a first post; experienced teachers use it to move to a new school, a higher class band or another city. It answers a newspaper or online advertisement, a notice on a school’s website, or no advertisement at all — a letter to schools near home in Guntur, say, asking to be considered for future vacancies. Private schools shortlist from it directly. Government recruitment runs through its own application forms and exams, where a letter like this is at most a covering note.

Eligibility is set in layers. For classes I–VIII in schools covered by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, the National Council for Teacher Education sets minimum qualifications, including a pass in a Teacher Eligibility Test — CTET, conducted by CBSE, or a State TET. State rules and the school’s advertisement can add more. Check the current NCTE norms and read the advertisement line by line before you apply. Outside India, the equivalent check is registration or a licence from the state, province or national teaching body; look up the rule where the school is.

The application is a request to be considered, not proof of eligibility. The school will check your degrees, B.Ed. or D.El.Ed. and TET certificate against the originals, and a claim the documents cannot support ends the process. Nor does the letter make an offer happen: interviews, a demonstration class and reference checks follow, and the terms arrive in an appointment letter. Keep the letter to your case for this post; a life history or a list of every workshop you attended hides the facts the school is looking for.

What to put in a Teaching Job Application

These are the details this template asks for. Anything left blank is marked in red on the preview so you can see what is still missing.

How to write a Teaching Job Application

1. Name the post, subject and source

   Put your name, address, phone and email at the top, then address the principal or the correspondent by designation, with the school’s name and address. In the first sentence, name the post and subject exactly as advertised — ‘TGT (Mathematics)’, not ‘a teaching job’ — and say where and when you saw the vacancy. A school advertising several posts sorts applications by that line.

2. List qualifications in the advertisement’s order

   Give each qualification with the subject, university and year of passing: your degree, any postgraduate degree, then B.Ed. or D.El.Ed. If the advertisement asks for a degree in the subject plus B.Ed., put those first so the reader can tick them off. For a PGT post, lead with the postgraduate degree in the subject you will teach, because the post is defined by it.

3. State your TET result clearly

   Name the test — CTET or your State’s TET — the level you qualified for, and the year. Check whether the post needs it: for classes I–VIII in schools covered by the RTE Act, the NCTE’s minimum qualifications include a TET pass. If you are waiting for a result, say so plainly; claiming a pass you do not yet hold will come out at document verification.

4. Show experience through classes and results

   Give the schools, subjects and classes you taught, with dates, and a concrete result for each: a board-exam class you took through its exams, a science exhibition you ran, a reading programme for struggling readers. Then say what you would bring to this school — a subject club, bilingual teaching, lab work — and offer a demonstration class, a common step after shortlisting.

5. Give your joining date and enclosures

   Say when you can join: at once, from the start of the next term, or after the notice your current school requires. List the enclosures by name — CV, copies of degree certificates and mark sheets, B.Ed. or D.El.Ed. certificate, TET certificate, experience certificates. Send copies only; take the originals to the interview for verification. Close with the sign-off that matches your greeting, and sign.

Common mistakes

• Applying for ‘a teacher’s post’ without naming the level and subject leaves the letter with nowhere to go when a school has advertised PRT, TGT and PGT vacancies at once.
• Leaving out your TET result for a post covering classes I–VIII makes you look ineligible, and the application can be screened out unread.
• Enclosing original certificates risks losing documents you need for every future application, because you cannot count on an unsuccessful application being returned.
• Sending an identical letter addressed ‘To whom it may concern’ to every school tells the principal you did not read their advertisement, and a tailored application from someone else gets the interview.
• Claiming a qualification you do not yet hold, such as a teaching degree still awaiting results, is found out at document verification and can end your candidacy.

Frequently asked questions

This page explains general practice and is not legal advice. Requirements differ between countries and, in some cases, between states — check what applies where the document will be used.

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