The Supreme Court’s Thursday verdict invalidating the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching employees recruited by the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) in 2016 has triggered an unprecedented crisis for a large number of schools across the state.
Take the case of Murshidabad district, where rough estimates say that over 3,000 teachers lost their jobs. At Arjunpur High School at Farakka in Murshidabad, which has 9,000 students, 36 teachers joined in 2016. When Supreme Court judges Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar announced their ruling, the school lost the services of 36 of its 67 teachers, making it a challenge to run the institution with only 31 teachers.
The school’s managing committee president, Habib Parwez, said under these circumstances, ensuring proper education for so many students "has become almost impossible". "We have convened an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss ways to cope with the crisis," he said.
He added that the committee urged parents to attend the meeting.
The school's teacher-in-charge Md Sourav Ali voiced Parwez's concern.
“We are bracing for an extremely challenging situation. At present, the school conducts 60 classroom sessions daily from Classes V to XII. We need at least 60 teachers every hour to manage these classes. I have no idea how we will run all 60 classrooms with only 31 regular teachers and six para-teachers after the Supreme Court verdict,” he said.
Local sources said that Arjunpur High School had nearly 100 teachers a few years ago. The administration had introduced mandatory identity cards for teachers. However, frequent transfers without replacements led to the number dwindling even before Thursday's ruling.
The crisis is not limited to this Farakka-based school. Many educators fear that this en bloc invalidation of teacher appointments will disrupt academic activities in numerous schools.
Bhagwangola Balika Vidyalaya in Murshidabad is likely to come second in terms of invalidation of service of teachers due to Thursday's verdict as 21 of its 56 teachers lost their jobs.
"From tomorrow (Friday), the school with nearly 3,500 students may have to be run with only 35 teachers. However, till the order comes from the district inspector of schools, we cannot say any teacher is invalidated," said school managing committee member Abdur Rahaman.
The New Farakka High School lost 11 of its 34 teachers. Bahadurpur High School saw four of its nine teachers lose their jobs, while Brahmangram Swarnamoyee Balika Vidyalaya lost five of its 10 teachers.
Abu Sufian, a physics teacher at Chachanda BJ High School in Murshidabad, who was among those dismissed, appeared livid.
“I have lost faith in both the government and the judiciary. I never imagined that the Supreme Court would issue a verdict invalidating the jobs of so many teachers. If some got their jobs through illegal means, the Supreme Court cannot snatch the livelihood of those who got it on pure merit,” Sufian said.
The story is the same in any other district in Bengal.
Jamtala Bhagaban Chandra High School at Kultali in South 24-Parganas lost the services of 11 of its 36 teachers. Krishnachandrapur High School in Mathurapur, South 24-Parganas, will have to do without eight of its 54 teachers. At Sutragarh Girls’ High School in Santipur, Nadia, appointments of five teachers have been invalidated by the SC ruling.
The invalidation order has raised questions about these teachers assigned the task of checking Madhyamik and higher secondary answer scripts.
"Many of these teachers have submitted their checked answer scripts. The education department has to take a decision fast in this regard so that no legal implications develop later about the authenticity of the job done by these teachers who stand to lose their jobs," Chandan Kumar Maiti, general secretary of the Advanced Society for Headmasters and Headmistresses told The Telegraph.
