The school service commission is going ahead with the recruitment process at the upper primary level (Classes VI to VIII).
The SSC published the notification for the seventh phase of counselling on June 5, days after it released the recruitment rules for the appointment of upper primary teachers next year.
The counselling notice said 121 teaching job aspirants would be called to choose their schools on June 11.
On August 28, 2024, a Calcutta High Court division bench asked the SSC to recruit 14,052 assistant teachers for the upper primary level of government-aided schools within four weeks.
An SSC official said they could not start the counselling immediately after the order on August 28, as it was challenged in the Supreme Court.
“After the apex court struck down the challenges and declined to stall the hiring, the counselling could be resumed in October last year, eight years after the written test,” said the official.
The official said the SSC, which has been battling pressure following the termination of secondary and higher secondary-level school jobs by the apex court in April this year, is taking longer than the court-stipulated time to complete the hiring process.
“We are committed to completing the recruitment because the process was stalled at the upper primary level for several years due to court cases alleging irregularities in the selection process. The SSC could not work for many days in April and May following protests by the sacked school staff outside the office. But we have stayed on course and are proceeding with the counselling,” the official said.
The candidates who have been appointed and will be appointed in the coming days wrote the 2015 Teachers Eligibility Test (TET), held in 2016.
No one could be recruited until a division bench of Calcutta High Court intervened on August 28, 2024, following a barrage of petitions against the hiring process.
Sushanta Ghosh, president of the West Bengal Upper Primary Teaching Job Aspirants’ Forum, had moved the high court in April 2025, alleging delay in completing the counselling process despite a directive from the court.
“The SSC resumed the counselling after the case was filed against the delay,” Ghosh said.
Calls to SSC chairperson Siddhartha Majumdar went unanswered.
Sources in the SSC said that so far, 12,675 candidates have been called in several rounds of counselling, including in the seventh phase. Around 9,500 candidates have been recommended and have joined schools.
The SSC will conduct the next TET to appoint upper primary teachers before March 2026, based on the recruitment rules uploaded on May 30.
The rules said that the screening components would include teaching experience and lecture demonstration, which were not part of the 2016 selection process.