In this paper, an optimal proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller is suggested for position control of DC servo-motor system. The performance index considered is integral-square-error (ISE) of unit step response. The ISE is designed with the help of alpha and beta tables. The teaching-learning-based optimization (TLBO) algorithm is utilized for minimizing the performance index. The proposed results are compared with other existing well-known methods. It is found that the TLBO based tuning provided better results.