The Supreme Court’s ruling that has left over 25,000 teachers and non-teaching staff jobless has led to stalemates in many of the state-aided schools across Bengal.

In North Dinajpur, the authorities of Goagaon High School, a co-educational institution for students studying from Class V to Class XII located in Goalpokhar 1 block, have deferred the unit tests because of a paucity of teachers.

“Nine teachers of our school have their names on the panel that has been cancelled by the Supreme Court. After the ruling, they are not attending the school, and right now, we have only seven teachers for around 3,000 students,” said Kaushar Ahmed, the headmaster.

“Earlier, we had planned to conduct the unit tests from Class V to Class IV this week. But as this new situation has emerged, we have decided to defer the exams for another week,” he added.

Sources in the institution said they were waiting for instructions from the state government. “For the exams, it is tough even to conduct regular classes with only seven teachers. We hope the state education department will take necessary initiatives to help us get out of the situation,” said a senior teacher.

Mohammad Abu Taher, a guardian, also expressed his concern. “Because of a shortage of teachers, classes are also getting affected. We doubt whether our children will be taught the entire syllabus in their respective classes during this academic year,” he said.

In Cooch Behar, teachers and students of Mainaguri High School are yet inanother fix. Yusuf Sarkar, the teacher-in-charge (TIC), has lost his job.

“It is a matter of concern as the TIC plays an important role in the school. Usually, the managing committee of the school concerned selects the TIC and informs the district education department. But in this case, no instruction about the removal of teachers, whose names were there on the panel, has reached the district level. So, the managing committee could not take a decision,” said a source.

Altogether, there are 1,300 students and 23 teachers at the school.

A senior school teacher said, along with overall monitoring of the institution, the TIC was the signatory authority to issue cheques of the mid-day meal scheme, the salary bills of teachers, and make entries in the state’s portal for disbursement of salaries.

“The portal is OTP based and the OTP comes in the TIC’s phone. If he is not there, who will make the entries? Also, the TIC signs in different government schemes meant for students and approves leaves for teachers. All these works will come to a halt,” he said.

Samar Chandra Mandal, the district inspector of schools (secondary) of Cooch Behar, said: “We have not received any instructions from the state government. We can act only if there is a written order and can advise the managing committee of the concerned school as to what they should do.”

Sarkar, the TIC, could not be contacted. Calls made to him went unanswered.

In Cooch Behar, there are around 520 state-aided junior high, high, higher secondary and madrasahs and around 6,500 teachers are associated with these institutions. Of them, around 450 teachers and 250 non-teaching staff lost jobs.