As Services of Illegally Recruited Teachers are Terminated, WB Stares at a Crisis

During the last ten days, the process of terminating the services of illegally appointed teachers in government schools in West Bengal began with 255 primary teachers following orders from the Calcutta High Court.

The countdown for the dismissal of 1698 non-teaching staff has also started. It is feared that this number may reach thousands in the coming days. This issue relating to non-teaching staff, as acknowledged by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) in the Calcutta High Court, will leave government schools with hardly any staff, even at the school gate To lock and unlock or to ring the doorbell. period bell.

Observers are of the view that this will turn into a twin crisis in the state, first administrative and second political. From an administrative point of view the system in many state-run schools may collapse especially in rural West Bengal with so many serving teachers and non-teaching staff losing their jobs.

According to Sumita Mukherjee, a retired inspector of schools in West Bengal, there are many schools in rural areas, mainly in the primary section, that are run by one teacher and one non-teaching staff. “Even in the normal process these schools find it difficult to get additional teachers and non-teaching staff. So, with so many teachers losing their jobs, it can be imagined what would be the condition of these schools which run with very less teaching and non-teaching staff. I think the state government will have to close many such schools and many people are going to lose their jobs.

IANS tried to contact several leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress on the issue, but none of them was willing to make any official statement on the matter, as the Calcutta High Court order resulted in the termination of jobs. However, a senior member of the state committee, on condition of anonymity, said that perhaps it was a failure of the legal mind of the state government and the WBSSC, who were not able to explain the practical difficulties in laying off so many teachers and non-teachers. . -teaching staff.

CPI(M)’s Rajya Sabha member and Calcutta High Court senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said such an inevitable collapse is actually a well-planned move by the ruling party to ruin the state-run education system and make way for private ones. player to completely take over the field.

While this administrative crisis looms large, from a political point of view it will take the form of a new movement demanding the return of the money paid by job losers to get jobs. Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly Shubhendu Adhikari has said that the termination of services of 255 primary teachers and 1,698 non-teaching staff is just the beginning and the number will cross 25,000 in the next few months. “Then these job losers and their family members will start harassing the Trinamool Congress leaders and demand the money back. The coming days will be extremely difficult for the ruling party,” the official said.

Trinamool Congress leaders such as the party’s Rajya Sabha member Shantanu Sen claim that BJP leaders are perhaps forgetting scams like the Vyapam scam in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh. “Our party leadership stands by our stand of zero tolerance towards corruption by taking action against a guilty minister and removing him from all posts. But can the BJP provide a single instance of disciplinary action against its leaders with proven involvement in corruption?

Political commentator Sabyasachi Bandopadhyay believes that this multi-crore teacher recruitment scam has now become a double-edged sword for both the administration and the ruling party. “That is why the state government desperately tried to accommodate the illegally recruited candidates by creating additional posts for teachers where it was proposed to accommodate deserving ones who were unjustly deprived. However, this did not work as the court rejected the idea of ​​creating such posts. Now that termination of services of ineligible candidates has become inevitable, a huge backlash from job losers cannot be ruled out, as Justice Joymalya Bagchi observed that certainly these illegal recruitments are not out of love but out of love. There was an idea,” Bandopadhyay said.

In fact, a section of the state police is also anticipating a backlash from those who have lost their jobs. “Major protest rallies in the state capital are manageable. But a sporadic backlash against middlemen in districts will often not be under control. This will be a major cause of concern for law and order officials,” said a police officer on condition of anonymity.

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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)