“When I had appeared in the exam seven years ago, I was unmarried. Now I am married and have the responsibility of raising my four-year-old son. I have forgotten all that I studied back then,” said Smritirupa who hails from Bolpur in Birbhum district.
Candidate Smritirupa Pal, 33, who passed the upper primary Teacher Eligibility Test (TET), is seated outside Acharya Sadan in Kolkata’s Salt Lake neighbourhood, her four-year-old kid on her lap. She is completing final preparations for her interview.
She is one of the 1,585 applicants who received an invitation to an interview for a position as a teacher at a government-run school.
“When I had appeared in the exam seven years ago, I was unmarried. Now I am married and have the responsibility of raising my four-year-old son. I have forgotten all that I studied back then,”
The West Bengal Central School Service Commission (WBCSSC) has called up 1,585 TET-qualified candidates from 2014 to appear in interviews for positions in the upper primary section in the state-run and aided schools, despite the fact that the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) announced a new TET for the primary section on December 11 to fill approximately 11,000 vacant posts.
According to the WBBPE, 6.9 lakh candidates have applied to take the test.
Many qualified candidates for the TET and SSC filed a case in the High Court, charging irregularities in the employment process.
The sole bench under Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay mandated CBI and ED investigations into the alleged scheme.
Following this, a large number of additional government officials—including the former state education minister Partha Chatterjee, the former SSC chairman Subiresh Bhattacharyya, the former head of the primary board Manik Bhattacharya, and many others—were detained for their alleged involvement in the scam.
The candidates asserted that the TET exam merit list had been altered so that underqualified candidates might be hired in exchange for money.
Applications were frequently denied due of incomplete, poorly uploaded, or lost applicant paperwork.
Sushanta Mondal (36), of Joyrambati in the Bankura district, initially filed a complaint with the WBCSSC’s grievances department and then with the High Court after being denied employment despite being listed on the merit list. “The TET exam was held in 2015 after the announcement was published in 2014. In it, I received 75.2% of the possible points. I was not given the opportunity to participate in the interview during the 2016 hiring process. Later, we learned that those with low test scores or who failed the exam altogether were offered jobs for cash. That is when we decided to relocate the court and the grievance cell, according to Mondal, who has been working as a daily-paid teacher at a Delhi-area private school for the past six years.
“Recently, I received a letter asking me to appear for the interview for the upper primary section. Those who scored better marks or appeared in the merit list are being called. We hope that I will probably get the job which I should have had back in 2016,“In 2016, I did not feature in the merit list. In 2019, my name was there in the revised merit list. This time my application was cancelled as my documents were not properly uploaded. It was said that one of my documents went missing from the server. This means the entire recruitment process was compromised.”
“A fresh recruitment drive is taking place to appoint teachers at the upper primary level. We are conducting a fair and transparent recruitment. We are abiding by the court orders.”“We are complying with the court orders. The recruitment drive has started. New positions are also been created to accommodate the candidates,” said Basu.“This is our last chance. Almost all the candidates have lost precious years of their lives. We are in our thirties now. If we don’t get the job now, we will no longer be able to apply for it again. We hope that this time a fair recruitment process will be held,” “The interview went well. Let us hope that the entire process will be transparent also.”