Secondary tutors to evaluate Higher Secondary answer scripts due to teacher shortage
Telegraph | 28 February 2025
The state higher secondary council will deploy secondary school teachers to evaluate Higher Secondary answer scripts because schools do not have enough Plus II teachers to be appointed as examiners.
At present, there is a recruitment freeze in schools.
Earlier, teachers with at least five years of teaching experience at the Plus II level would be assigned the responsibility.
The council tweaked rules and allowed teachers with a minimum three years of teaching experience at an HS school to evaluate the answer scripts.
The absence of adequate teachers in schools owing to a pause in recruitment has left the council with an inadequate pool of examiners, said a council official.
In many schools, teachers appointed for secondary classes (Classes IX and X) are being asked to fill in for higher secondary teachers.
Now, they are also being assigned the responsibility of evaluating higher secondary answer scripts.
“We have engaged some secondary school teachers to assess the HS scripts. As we don’t have enough teachers at the Plus II level, the council had to take the step,” council secretary Priyadarshini Mallick told Metro.
The school-leaving examinations begin on March 3 and will continue till March 18.
The council has already started sending letters to teachers, apprising them that they have been entrusted with the responsibility of assessing the HS scripts.
The freeze in the recruitment of teachers stems from allegations of irregularities in the recruitment process, leading to a barrage of court cases.
The school service commission (SSC) has not been able to make any recruitment at the secondary and higher secondary over the past eight years.
On April 22, 2024, a Calcutta High Court division bench led by Justice Debanshu Basak cancelled the appointment of over 23,000 teachers and non-teaching staff at the secondary and higher secondary levels in government-aided schools on the ground that it was impossible to segregate the illegal appointments from the legal ones.
The state government has challenged the order in the Supreme Court, which stayed the high court order and is expected to give a final order soon.
Many teachers wondered how those teaching at the secondary level schools could examine the scripts of higher-level examinations.
They said this could compromise the standard of evaluation.
The headmaster of Jodhpur Park Boys’ School, Amit Sen Mazumder, said: “There is an acute crisis of teachers in the higher secondary section. However, I don’t know how teachers of the secondary level can qualify as examiners for the HS level.”
The number of examinees is nearly five lakh this year, said sources in the council.
Last year, a little over seven lakh students took the school leaving examination.
Council president Chiranjeeb Bhattacharya said: “Once teacher recruitment resumes at the higher secondary level, the responsibility of assessing HS scripts will again be given to HS-level teachers only.”