The Andhra Pradesh School Education Department has already published the DSC-2026 syllabus — unusual, since it normally arrives with the detailed notification. You can start studying now, roughly two weeks before applications open on or before 3 November 2026.
The published syllabus gives the mark allocation for every post category. It does not give the question count or duration; those come from the AP Teacher Recruitment Test Rules notified in G.O.Ms.No.15, School Education (Services-I) Department, dated 19 April 2025. This page puts both together and says plainly which figures are confirmed and which are not. The brief notification states that DSC-2026 "will be governed by the Rules which prevail as on the date of Detailed Notification" — so what follows is the current rule position, not a guarantee.
Exam pattern at a glance
Every paper is a Computer Based Test, objective type. For most posts the written exam is not out of 100 — it is out of 80, and AP TET supplies the other 20. That is the single fact candidates most often get wrong.
| Post | Written test (CBT) | AP TET / CTET weightage | Total for merit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Secondary Grade Teacher (SGT) | 80 marks | 20 marks | 100 |
| School Assistant (SA) | 80 marks | 20 marks | 100 |
| SGT — Special Education | 80 marks | 20 marks | 100 |
| TGT — Special Education | 80 marks | 20 marks | 100 |
| School Assistant (Physical Education) / Physical Director | 100 marks | None — no TET required | 100 |
| Physical Education Teacher (PET) | 100 marks | None — no TET required | 100 |
| TGT (societies) | Paper II 80 marks + Paper I 100 marks | To be confirmed | To be confirmed |
| PGT (societies) | Paper II 100 marks + Paper I 100 marks | To be confirmed | To be confirmed |
| Principal (societies) | Paper II 100 marks + Paper I 100 marks | To be confirmed | To be confirmed |
The 80:20 split is fixed by Rule 6 and Rule 19 of the AP TRT Rules for School Assistants, Secondary Grade Teachers, TGT (Special Education) and SGT (Special Education). The same rules state explicitly that there is no TET requirement for School Assistant (Physical Education) and Physical Education Teacher — those two posts are selected on the 100-mark written test alone.
How the AP TET weightage actually works
AP TET is not a second exam you sit during DSC-2026. It is a score you already hold, folded into your DSC merit at 20 per cent. Two conditions attach: only a score that cleared the qualifying mark counts at all, and both APTET and CTET are accepted, each out of 150.
| TET | Maximum marks | OC / EWS | BC | SC / ST / PwBD / Ex-servicemen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| APTET | 150 | 90 | 75 | 60 |
| CTET | 150 | 90 | 75 | 60 |
Twenty marks on a 100-mark total is a wide margin where thousands compete for a few hundred district posts, and the TET component is already locked in — no amount of content revision recovers it.
One caution: the rules fix the 80:20 split but do not publish the arithmetic that converts a score out of 150 into the 20-mark component. Do not trust any blog quoting a formula for this; the detailed notification is where it will be stated.
Selection is on merit-cum-roster, prepared by the District Selection Committee, with local-candidate reservation under the Presidential Order of 1975 and the usual vertical and horizontal reservations.
SGT exam pattern — 160 questions, 80 marks
The SGT paper is the broadest in DSC-2026: five school subjects at once, each at content and methodology level, with no single subject worth more than 12 marks.
| Part | Section | Questions | Marks |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | General Knowledge & Current Affairs | 16 | 8 |
| II | Perspectives in Education | 8 | 4 |
| III | Classroom implications of Educational Psychology | 16 | 8 |
| IV | Language I (optional) — content 8 + methodology 4 | 24 | 12 |
| V | Language II (English) — content 8 + methodology 4 | 24 | 12 |
| VI | Mathematics — content 8 + methodology 4 | 24 | 12 |
| VII | Science — content 8 + methodology 4 | 24 | 12 |
| VIII | Social Studies — content 8 + methodology 4 | 24 | 12 |
| Total | 160 | 80 |
Duration is 2 hours 30 minutes. Language I may be Telugu, Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Oriya, Kannada or Sanskrit. The official syllabus sets the content standard directly: Class III to VIII prescribed textbooks, difficulty level up to Class X. The syllabus document writes the same split as "Content & Methodologies — 60M (40+20)", which is the five subject blocks added together.
School Assistant exam pattern — 160 questions, 80 marks
Where SGT spreads across five subjects, School Assistant concentrates 60 of its 80 marks on one. That is the biggest structural difference between the two papers, and why an SGT study plan does not transfer to SA.
| Part | Section | Questions | Marks |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | General Knowledge & Current Affairs | 20 | 10 |
| II | Perspectives in Education | 10 | 5 |
| III | Classroom implications of Educational Psychology | 10 | 5 |
| IV | Content of the concerned subject | 80 | 40 |
| IV | Methodology of the concerned subject | 40 | 20 |
| Total | 160 | 80 |
Duration is 2 hours 30 minutes. The published syllabus carries this identical 10 / 5 / 5 / 40 / 20 split for every School Assistant subject — English, Telugu, Urdu, Tamil, Kannada, Odiya, Hindi, Sanskrit, Mathematics, Physical Science, Biological Science and Social Studies.
Special Education posts — disability specialisation is a separate block
Both special education cadres carry a Category of disability specialisation section, taken in either Hearing Impairment or Visual Impairment. For TGT (Special Education) it is 30 marks — the largest single block in that paper. The Perspectives and Psychology sections also change: they follow the Rehabilitation Council of India curriculum, not the general one.
| Section | SGT (Special Education) | TGT (Special Education) |
|---|---|---|
| General Knowledge & Current Affairs | 8 | 10 |
| Perspectives in Special & Inclusive Education | 4 | 5 |
| Psychology with reference to CWSN | 8 | 5 |
| Category of disability specialisation (HI or VI) | 20 | 30 |
| Content | 25 | 20 |
| Methodology | 15 | 10 |
| Total | 80 | 80 |
Both run 160 questions in 2 hours 30 minutes. SGT (Special Education) spreads its 40 content-and-methodology marks across Telugu, English, Mathematics, Science and Social at 5 + 3 each; TGT (Special Education) applies its 30 to one regular subject. SGT (Special Education) is pegged to the D.Ed / D.El.Ed Special Education standard, TGT to B.Ed Special Education.
TGT, PGT and Principal — a two-paper structure
The 260 society posts work differently, and are where the least is confirmed. The published syllabus shows two papers: a common Paper I in English Language Proficiency at intermediate level, carrying 100 marks and shared by TGT, PGT and Principal candidates in non-language posts, plus a subject Paper II.
| Section | TGT Paper II | PGT Paper II | Principal Paper II |
|---|---|---|---|
| General Knowledge & Current Affairs | 10 | 10 | 15 |
| Perspectives in Education | 5 | 10 | 15 |
| Educational Psychology | 5 | 10 | 20 |
| Content | 40 | 50 | 35 |
| Methodology | 20 | 20 | 15 |
| Total | 80 | 100 | 100 |
Note how the Principal paper shifts weight away from subject content towards Educational Psychology and Perspectives — 50 of its 100 marks sit outside subject content, against 30 for PGT. It is a different paper, not a harder PGT one.
PGT subject papers cover English, Telugu, Hindi, Sanskrit, Mathematics, Physical Science, Biological Science, Botany, Zoology, Social Studies, Civics, Economics and Commerce. TGT covers English, Telugu, Hindi, Sanskrit, Mathematics, General Science, Physical Science, Biological Science and Social Studies.
Not confirmed for these three cadres: question count, duration, whether Paper I is qualifying-only or counted in merit, and whether any TET weightage applies. The AP TRT Rules structure table covers only SA, SA (Physical Education), SGT, TGT (Special Education), SGT (Special Education) and PET — the society cadres are not in it. All of this awaits the detailed notification.
PET and Physical Director — 200 questions, 100 marks
Physical education posts have the longest paper in DSC-2026 and the heaviest content load: 70 of 100 marks on subject content alone.
| Part | Section | Questions | Marks |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | General Knowledge & Current Affairs | 10 | 5 |
| II | Perspectives in Education | 10 | 5 |
| III | Physical Education Pedagogy and Educational Technology | 40 | 20 |
| IV | Physical Education Content | 140 | 70 |
| Total | 200 | 100 |
Duration is 3 hours. The 70-mark content block spans organisation and administration, history and philosophy of physical education, anatomy, physiology, kinesiology and biomechanics, health education and sports injuries, sports medicine and rehabilitation, yoga, recreation and leisure management, sports training and management, officiating and coaching, and measurement and evaluation. PET is pegged to UG / D.P.Ed standards, SA (Physical Education) to B.P.Ed.
Post-wise vacancy breakup — 2,721 posts
Three brief notifications were issued on 13 October 2026, one per stream. The figures are tentative; final post-wise and management-wise vacancies with rosters come in the detailed notification.
| Stream | Posts | Vacancies |
|---|---|---|
| General schools (Govt / ZP / MPP / Municipal) | School Assistant 906, SGT 1,205 | 2,111 |
| Special education (Govt / ZP / MPP / Municipal) | SA (SE) 150, SGT (SE) 200 | 350 |
| Societies and other managements | Principal 30, PGT 81, TGT 113, Physical Director 2, PET 34 | 260 |
| Total | 2,721 |
The district spread is lopsided in a way that should shape where you apply. Kurnool alone carries 404 posts across the four district cadres, Prakasam 291 and YSR Kadapa 227, while Parvathipuram Manyam has 15 and Vizianagaram 18. On the SGT side the concentration is sharper — Kurnool 213, Prakasam 170, YSR Kadapa 158 and Alluri Sitharamaraju 153, against zero SGT posts in West Godavari, Palnadu, Bapatla and Sri Satya Sai.
The 260 society posts sit under APSWREIS (85), APREIS (68), MJPAPBCWREIS (37), APTWREIS (36), AP Model Schools (19) and the Welfare of Differently Abled, Transgender and Senior Citizens Department (15).
What the common sections contain
Three sections repeat across almost every paper — 20 marks for School Assistant, 20 for SGT, 35 for Principal. They are the most efficient marks in DSC-2026, because you study them once for every post you apply to.
Perspectives in Education runs from the history of education — Woods Despatch 1854, Hunter Commission 1882, Hartog Committee 1929, Sargent Committee 1944, then Mudaliar 1952-53, Kothari 1964-66, Ishwarbhai Patel 1977, NPE 1986 and POA 1992 — through teacher empowerment, contemporary educational concerns, the RTE Act 2009, RTI Act 2005, child rights and human rights, finishing on NCF 2005 and NEP 2020. The programme names matter: APPEP, DPEP, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, NPEGEL, RMSA, Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan, KGBVs and Model Schools.
Educational Psychology covers development of the child, individual differences and intelligence including multiple intelligence, learning theories and transfer of learning, and personality. Named theorists: Piaget, Kohlberg, Chomsky, Carl Rogers and Erikson. For School Assistant and TGT the section is titled "classroom implications of Educational Psychology" — the questions are applied, not definitional.
General Knowledge and Current Affairs is the one section the syllabus leaves open, with no topic list at all. It is 8 marks for SGT, 10 for School Assistant, TGT and PGT, 15 for Principal and 5 for the physical education posts.
What is still not announced
- Negative marking. Neither the three brief notifications nor the AP TRT Rules prescribe any deduction for a wrong answer. No negative marking scheme has been published for DSC-2026. Confirm it in the detailed notification before you settle an attempt strategy.
- Exam dates. The notifications say only that these "will be announced in the Detailed Notification".
- Minimum qualifying marks in the written test itself. The rules set qualifying marks for AP TET but do not state a cut-off for the TRT paper.
- Question count and duration for TGT, PGT, Principal and Physical Director. Not covered by the rules structure table.
- The TET-to-20-marks conversion formula. The split is in the rules; the arithmetic is not.
- Age limits, fees and the application window. Due with the detailed notification on or before 3 November 2026.
How to use this syllabus now
Download the right pages, not the whole file. The official syllabus runs 305 pages because it contains every post and subject. Your paper is perhaps fifteen of them; the index sits on page 3.
Check your TET score first. Confirm your APTET or CTET score cleared the qualifying mark for your category. If it did not, the 20-mark component is not available to you and the arithmetic of your application changes completely.
Start with the 20 common marks. Perspectives in Education and Educational Psychology are fixed, finite and shared across every post you might apply for. They do not go stale between cycles.
Then go subject-deep for SA, subject-wide for SGT. Sixty marks on one subject rewards depth; twelve marks each on five subjects punishes it.
Do not wait for 3 November. The syllabus is out and only administrative detail is pending. The weeks before the detailed notification are the only uncontested study time in this cycle.