CTET December 2026: exam dates, admit card, eligibility, pattern, qualifying marks and result

CTET December 2026 exam date and schedule

Why did the date move? CBSE's notice of 25 August 2026 reopened the form after the Supreme Court, in a review petition in Civil Appeal No. 1385/2025, stressed that eligible teachers need a fair chance to acquire the TET qualification. The revised date followed on 14 September. May and June applicants did not need to apply again.

The September bulletin put Paper 2 at 9:30 am to 12 noon and Paper 1 at 2:30 pm to 5 pm, with the gate closing when the test starts. Go by your admit card. Our news report has the same dates: CTET 2026 will be held on 12 and 13 December.

CTET admit card and city intimation slip

The two documents come at different times:

1. City intimation slip. CBSE puts your allotted exam city and date on the CTET portal 15 days before the exam. Counted back from 12 December, that is around 27 November 2026, but CBSE has not given a calendar date. Use it to book travel; it is not an admit card.
2. Admit card. It goes live two days before your exam (around 10 December for a 12 December paper) with the centre address and reporting time.
3. How to download. On ctet.nic.in, open the December 2026 admit card link and sign in with your application number and password.
4. Check it. If your name, photo or signature does not match your confirmation page, contact the CTET Unit at once (011-24050477, [email protected]).

You cannot pick or change your exam city. The bulletin says CBSE allots cities at random and will not accept change requests for any reason.

Fee (form now closed): ₹1,000 for one paper or ₹1,200 for both (General and OBC-NCL); ₹500 or ₹600 (SC, ST and differently abled), plus GST. The test runs in 132 cities and 27 languages (notice of 8 May 2026).

CTET eligibility for Paper 1 and Paper 2

The CTET bulletin does not list degrees itself. It points to the minimum qualifications notified by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), and the employer, not CBSE, verifies them later. Here is what NCTE's notification of 23 August 2010, as amended in 2011, 2019 and 2021, lists.

Paper 1 (Classes 1 to 5):

• Senior Secondary (Class 12) with at least 50% and a 2-year Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed., by whatever name known); or
• Class 12 with at least 45% and a 2-year D.El.Ed. under the NCTE Recognition Norms and Procedure Regulations, 2002; or
• Class 12 with at least 50% and a 4-year Bachelor of Elementary Education (B.El.Ed.); or
• Class 12 with at least 50% and a 2-year Diploma in Education (Special Education); or
• Graduation and a 2-year D.El.Ed.

A B.Ed. is not a route to Paper 1 jobs now. NCTE added "graduation with 50% and B.Ed." for Classes 1 to 5 in its notification of 28 June 2018, but the Supreme Court quashed that notification on 11 August 2023 in Devesh Sharma vs Union of India.

Paper 2 (Classes 6 to 8):

• Graduation and a 2-year D.El.Ed.; or
• At least 50% in graduation or post-graduation, and a B.Ed. (NCTE amendment of 13 November 2019); or
• Graduation with at least 45% and a 1-year B.Ed. under NCTE's recognition norms; or
• Class 12 with at least 50% and a 4-year B.El.Ed.; or
• Class 12 with at least 50% and a 4-year B.A./B.Sc.Ed. or B.A.Ed./B.Sc.Ed.; or
• Graduation with at least 50% and a 1-year B.Ed. (Special Education); or
• Post-graduation with at least 55% and the 3-year integrated B.Ed.-M.Ed. (NCTE amendment of 13 October 2021).

Relaxation and students. NCTE allows up to 5% relaxation in these qualifying marks for SC, ST, OBC and differently abled candidates. Under NCTE's TET guidelines of 11 February 2011, a person who is still studying in an NCTE- or RCI-recognised teacher education course can also sit the TET. Planning the degree first? Read our B.Ed admission 2026 guide.

CTET exam pattern and syllabus

Each question has four options and one mark, with no negative marking. To teach both stages, sit both papers.

Syllabus in short. Paper 1 follows the NCERT syllabus for Classes 1 to 5 (difficulty up to Secondary level); Paper 2 follows Classes 6 to 8 (up to Senior Secondary). Child Development and Pedagogy has 15 questions on child development, 5 on inclusive education and 10 on learning and pedagogy. Subject sections mix content and teaching method: 15 and 15 in Paper 1, 20 and 10 in Paper 2 Maths and Science, 40 and 20 in Social Studies. The main paper is bilingual (Hindi and English), and you pick Language I and II from 27 options, Gujarati among them.

How you answer. The bulletin for this edition describes a pen-and-paper test: an OMR answer sheet inside a sealed test booklet, marked with your own black or blue ball point pen. Pencils, erasers and whitener are not allowed. CBSE has not issued a fresh bulletin for the December dates, so read your admit card for any change in mode.

CTET qualifying marks

The bulletin quotes NCTE's guidelines of 11 February 2011: 60% or more is a TET pass, which is 90 of 150. It adds that school managements may consider concessions for SC, ST, OBC and differently abled candidates under their own reservation policy. So CBSE certifies at 60%, and any lower bar is set by the employer. There is no re-evaluation.

CTET result date: what past cycles show

No result date has been announced for December 2026, as of 19 October 2026. The last completed cycle gives a fair guide:

• Exam: 7 and 8 February 2026, with a Paper 2 re-exam on 1 March 2026 at two centres in Vaishali, Bihar (CBSE notice of 24 February 2026).
• Answer key and OMR images: displayed from 12 to 15 March 2026, with challenges at ₹1,000 per question (notice of 12 March 2026).
• Result: declared on 30 March 2026 (notice of 30 March 2026), about seven weeks after the exam.

Mark sheets and certificates are issued in DigiLocker; our APAAR ID and DigiLocker guide explains the account.

Certificate validity and what CTET qualifies you for

Validity. NCTE changed TET validity from seven years to life on 9 June 2021, and CBSE's public notice of 21 June 2021 applied that to all CTET certificates, old ones included. You may retake CTET to improve your score.

Where it counts. The bulletin says CTET applies to:

1. Central Government schools: Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS), Central Tibetan Schools and others;
2. schools of the UTs of Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep and Delhi;
3. CBSE-affiliated schools, where teachers of Classes 1 to 8 appointed after 6 March 2012 must pass CTET or a TET;
4. unaided private schools that choose to accept it.

State government and aided schools use their own state TET, unless the state decides to accept CTET instead. CTET is an eligibility, not a job: KVS and NVS run their own recruitment. For college teaching you need UGC NET instead; see our UGC NET December 2026 guide.

Gujarat, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh: CTET or the state TET?

Gujarat. Gujarat's government and aided primary schools recruit through the state's own Teacher Eligibility Tests, TET-I and TET-II, conducted by the State Examination Board, Gandhinagar (sebexam.org), which also runs TAT-S and TAT-HS for secondary and higher secondary teachers. CTET is what you need for KVS and NVS schools in Gujarat and for CBSE-affiliated schools. If you plan to teach in Gujarati medium, you can take Gujarati (code 06) as Language I or II in CTET.

Bihar and UP. Each recruitment notice says whether it accepts CTET, the state TET or both. See Bihar TRE 4.0 and its 33,320 posts and correcting a UPTET 2026 certificate.