Scrapped teacher panel gears up for fresh hiring test by school service commission
Telegraph | 10 April 2025
The school service commission is “going ahead” with its preparations for a fresh recruitment process to fill the posts that have fallen vacant after the Supreme Court last week scrapped the jobs of 25,773 teaching and non-teaching staff in Bengal’s government-aided schools.
An SSC official said the commission was completing “internal preparations” so recruitment tests could be held in pursuance of the court’s April 3 order.
“We have to ready our internal logistics ahead of the test. Meetings have to be held with the regional offices of the commission. We have to mobilise our staff across the state. In all probability, we have to let 22 lakh candidates who wrote the test in 2016 appear for the fresh exam,” the official said. “It is going to involve a lot of planning, which will take time.”
The commission last held any kind of recruitment test nine years ago.
In between, the only exercise it carried out was counselling to appoint teachers at the upper primary (Class V to VIII), secondary and higher secondary levels, following a court order.
“We have been out of touch for quite some time when it comes to holding written tests. If 22 lakh candidates are allowed to write the test again, we have to retrieve their data from our server,” the official said.
On April 3, the secretary of the school education department wrote to SSC chairperson Siddhartha Majumdar: “Without prejudice to the rights of the government in law and otherwise, it has been decided to request you to immediately take necessary steps to initiate fresh selection process as per direction of the Supreme Court.”
Earlier on the same day, the court said candidates not specifically found tainted but terminated would be eligible to participate, with appropriate age relaxation, in the next round of recruitments to fill the vacancies necessitated by the mass dismissal.
The Telegraph reported on April 5 that the SSC would ask the apex court whether the age relaxation offered to candidates should be extended to everyone who wrote the 2016 test or only to those who lost their jobs even though their hiring process was not “tainted”.
“These issues can be taken up with the court later. The commission first needs to complete its internal preparations on human resources and technical backup that would be required. The apex court must get the impression that its April 3 order is being complied with. Or else the court will view this as an act of defiance,” the official said.
In her interaction with terminated teaching and non-teaching staff at Netaji Indoor Stadium on Monday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said while she would do her utmost to protect the jobs of all those the Supreme Court had deemed “not specifically tainted”, she kept reminding the audience they would have to adhere to the Supreme Court order.
“If the state government’s petition of clarification or modification of the April 3 order falls flat, then holding the recruitment test to reinstate the jobs is the lone option. So, the preparations need to be made. Or else the test cannot be conducted at the earliest,” said an SSC official.
When contacted, SSC chairperson Majumdar declined to comment.