Calcutta: Sacked schoolteachers have to compete with fresh aspirants to continue their jobs beyond December 31, but they will be given up to 20 additional marks based on their period of service and classroom demonstration.

The school service commission issued a recruitment notification early on Friday, May 30, following a deadline set by the Supreme Court. A few hours earlier, it issued the rules for the hiring process.

The SSC tentatively fixed that a written test will be held in the first week of September. On offer are 23,312 teacher posts at the secondary level and 12,514 posts at the higher secondary level in government-aided schools.

The hiring drive marks the start of the first recruitment exercise for schoolteachers in Bengal in nine years. In an industry-starved state, teacher jobs have, over the years, been the biggest employment generator for the young.

A barrage of petitions against alleged irregularities in the appointment of teachers based on a test conducted by the SSC in 2016 had held up the recruitment process since then.

“The petitions led to the termination of 25,753 teaching and non-teaching posts in early April. Among them, 17,206 were teachers. Since no recruitment tests could be held in between, the number of vacancies went up. So, the SSC has decided to fill all the vacancies in this hiring drive,” said an official of the state education department.

Of the 17,206 teachers, 15,403 were identified as “not specifically found tainted”. They are the ones from the sacked lot who will be allowed to participate in the fresh
process.

Following the Supreme Court’s April 17 modification of its April 3 order, these 15,403 teachers are also allowed to work and draw salaries till December 31.

Although the state government has asked these teachers to write the test with fresh applicants in pursuance of the apex court’s modified order, the announcement of the added advantages suggests the government’s intent to try and retain them beyond
December 31.

The recruitment rules uploaded on the school education department website at 12.20am said “prior teaching experience” will hold 10 marks during the teacher selection, both at the secondary and the higher secondary levels.

Teaching experience will be calculated “on the basis of 2 marks for each year of service in a substantive post” in a government-aided or government-sponsored school.

An SSC official said they had proposed 5 marks for prior teaching experience. “But the state government raised it to 10 marks to give a clear advantage to the in-service teachers,” the official said.

Similarly, the SSC had proposed 5 marks for lecture demonstration, both at the secondary and higher secondary levels. “Here, too, the state government increased it to 10 marks. The in-service teachers who have taught for five years will have an edge in lecture demonstration,” the official said.

The earlier recruitments were based entirely on written test, academic scores (based on educational qualifications) and personal interviews.

Now, two more parameters — teaching experience and lecture demonstration — have been added to give an edge to the “not specifically found tainted” teachers in the hiring process.

The break-up of the weightage for the other three parameters is written exam 60 marks, educational qualification 10 marks and oral interview 10 marks, both at the secondary and higher secondary levels.

“This means, out of 100 marks of the selection mechanism, the in-service teachers are being awarded 20 marks straightaway,” the official said.

These teachers will also be given an age relaxation, following a Supreme Court directive. Such a recruitment test is usually restricted to those below 40 years. No such restriction applies to them.

The SSC said in its recruitment notification that the hiring exercise was subject to the outcome of the review petitions that the state government and the commission have filed before the apex court.

The state government has contended in its petition that the Supreme Court should not have terminated all the school jobs because of illegalities in the recruitment of some.

The SSC has said that when it was possible to separate the “not specifically” tainted teachers from the rest, it was not clear why the court had ordered the en masse
termination.

The recruitment notification that the SSC uploaded at 2.24am on Friday said: “The commission and the government of West Bengal have already applied for review of the said judgment (the Supreme Court’s April 3 order) and this exercise is strictly subject to the outcome of the review petitions and guidelines of the Hon’ble Court, to be followed by the commission and the government.”