The sacked teachers and other school employees have declined to return to work or offer voluntary service, spurning a proposal put forward by chief minister Mamata Banerjee as a temporary solution after the Supreme Court scrapped their jobs.

The axed school employees, unhappy with the chief minister’s “commitment” to protect their jobs, want something concrete and quick.

“We expected the chief minister to devise a clear way out so our jobs can be protected. But the chief minister told us to keep attending school in our capacity as voluntary service providers who would be compensated later. So, like civic volunteers, we have been reduced to civic teachers. We cannot be treated like this,” said Chinmoy Mandal, a spokesperson for the Deserving Teachers’ Rights Forum.

During a meeting with the terminated employees at Netaji Indoor Stadium on Monday, Mamata advised them to return to school as there was no bar on rendering “voluntary service” till they were reinstated through a fresh recruitment process. Some lawyers fighting for the teachers have warned against heeding such advice as it could bring them under the ambit of contempt of court.

The Supreme Court on April 3 annulled the jobs of 25,773 teaching and non-teaching employees in Bengal’s government-aided schools, saying the entire recruitment process of 2016 had been “vitiated”.

Representatives of the platform, who spent the night in the open on the Shahid Minar ground to attend Mamata’s meeting, said a day after that they could not understand why the government was putting the onus of running state-aided schools on those whose jobs had been terminated.

The state is worried that the sacking of such a large number of teachers could stall academic activities in several schools.

“The state government should hold itself responsible for the mess. A botched recruitment process conducted on her (Mamata’s) watch is responsible for the predicament that the schools find themselves in. How can the onus of keeping these schools running be passed on to us?” asked Mehboob Mandal, a teacher who was present on the dais at Netaji Indoor Stadium on Monday.

He said that they wrote the test in 2016 to become assistant teachers. “Our job profile cannot be that of a voluntary service provider. We have
resolved not to go to work,” Mandal said.

The state secondary education board, which governs
secondary and higher secondary schools, has appealed
to the Supreme Court to ensure that candidates not found to be specifically tainted be allowed to continue till the vacant posts are filled up or till the completion of the current academic year, whichever is earlier.

The chief minister, in her half-hour address, said: “While you try to work, one or two errors do happen. There is something called the ‘right to commit blunder’. We will try to rectify.”

Dhitesh Mandal, who was compèring the event at Netaji Indoor Stadium, said what was committed was not a mere mistake but large-scale illegalities for which the state’s education system was suffering and thousands of people had been rendered unemployed overnight.

“We will stay away from the schools. Let the state government seek a modification of the Supreme Court’s order and ensure our stay
in the schools with full honour. Rendering voluntary
service against an honorarium is out of the question. This affects our dignity,” said Dhitesh.

An education department official said some teaching and non-teaching staff went to their schools on Monday following Mamata’s assurances but a larger number of them stayed away.

Education minister Bratya Basu told reporters: “I would say, as advised by the chief minister, everybody should go to their schools. Whether to go or not, it is their wisdom.”

The Deserving Teachers’ Rights Forum said they would lock the doors of the district school inspectors’ offices across the state as a mark of protest at noon on Wednesday.

“The locks won’t be opened till our demands are met,”
said Mehboob Mandal of the platform.