Mita Mukherjee

Nearly 28 percent candidates selected for teaching posts in Bengal’s state funded upper primary schools (Classes VI to VIII) have not taken the jobs, according to West Bengal School Service Commission.

Around 658 successful candidates had been called for around 1,000 vacant posts in the first phase of counseling held between October 3 and October 29 after Durga Puja break covering schools where the medium of instruction is not Bengali. Around 149 candidates did not attend the counseling session and many others refused to take the job even after attending the session, sources in the commission said.

Bengal had been facing criticism for a long time for its failure to create adequate job opportunities for the educated population of the state and the recent trend noticed among successful aspiring teachers to refuse the teaching job offers in government schools has “surprised” many, according to commission officials. Thousands of educated youths are compelled to leave the state in search of jobs in other states every year.

An indefinite sit-in- demonstration that started 687 days ago by aspiring teachers demanding jobs is still continuing in central Kolkata.

This is the first time after almost ten years the commission started the process of appointing 14,052 teachers at government-aided schools.

Siddhartha Majumdar, the chairman of the West Bengal School Service Commission, the body that recruits government school teachers said that it is not clear why so many successful candidates have not attended the counseling session when there is so much demand for government job. But, many candidates who attended the counseling showed reluctance to accept because they were not willing to join the school allotted to them.

The counseling sessions are held to allot specific schools to the selected candidates according to their choice and on the basis of their rank.

 “ It is not clear why so many candidates did not attend the counseling session. We have tried to understand the reason from students who attended the session and with whom we interacted. There is no doubt about the demand for jobs. We will try to find out what prompted the candidates to refuse the jobs. The commission has conducted the entire recruitment maintaining full transparency,” Majumdar told EducationWorld.

The starting salary of teachers for teaching in state-aided upper primary schools is Rs 42, 384 per month.

A section of commission officials and heads of schools attributed the trend to the long delay in completing the recruitment process that resulted due to the number of litigations filed by some candidates.

Though the appointment of the 14,052 teachers began last month the applicants had appeared in the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) one of the criterion to apply for teaching jobs, in 2015. They appeared in the state level selection test to teach in state-aided upper primary schools in 2016. It took almost ten years to issue appointment letters to the selected candidates, as the selection process had to be kept on hold because of repeated petitions filed by aggrieved candidates citing irregularities in the selection process.     

A division bench of Calcutta High Court on August 28 asked the school service commission to publish the final merit list and complete the process of issuing the appointment letters within 12 weeks from that date.

Some candidates who attended the counseling session but did not accept the job said that they were not ready to accept the offer because the school they were allotted was situated at a far way place.

Some candidates said they had already shifted to other states and doing other jobs.

However, a large number of schools where the medium of instruction is not Bengali said their institutions are facing severe teacher scarcity problem. Noticing the trend, some schools have appealed to the selected candidates through social media to change their decision and join their institution for the interest of the students.

The second round of counseling is slated to start on November 11, for appointing teachers of Bengali medium schools.