Bengal’s School Service Commission will on Wednesday resume the process of hiring assistant teachers for the upper primary level (Classes VI to VIII) at government-aided schools, eight years after a written test was held to shortlist candidates.

The commission will publish a list of candidates to be called for counselling —
an interview before they are appointed.

In a notice on Monday, the commission said the list for the upper primary level would be published on September 25 “in respect to 1st SLST (State Level Selection Test), 2016”.

“The notice intimating the schedule for the first phase of counselling will be published thereafter,” it said.

The notice said the list was being published in compliance with Calcutta High Court’s August 28 judgment.

A division bench had on August 28 asked the commission to recruit 14,052 assistant teachers, striking down petitions from unsuccessful candidates who, the court said, could not “frustrate the selection process since the results are not palatable to them”.

Unsuccessful candidates had moved a barrage of petitions against the recruitment process, citing alleged irregularities, thus stalling the recruitment process. The petitioners were those whose names had figured on the merit list of the written test but who were not called to the interview at the time.

A commission official said a candidate is called to the interview based on their performance in the written test as well their academic scores, which include the marks obtained at the secondary, higher secondary, undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

“Cracking the written test does not ensure that one will be called to the interview,” an SSC official said.

Recruitment at the primary (Classes I to V), secondary (Classes IX and X) and higher secondary (Classes XI and XII) levels remains stalled because of continuing litigation over alleged irregularities.

Commission chairperson Siddhartha Majumdar said: “The court directed the commission to prepare and publish the final merit list and the panel in terms of Rule 12(5) and Rule 12b(6) of the 2016 Rules, respectively, in accordance with law within a period of four weeks from August 28, the day the order was issued. So we have decided to publish the panel following the deadline set by the court.”

The court had asked the commission to issue the appointment letters within eight weeks from August 28.

“The next step will be issuing the appointment letters. We look forward to completing the task by the end of October,” a commission official said.

He said the list to be published on Wednesday will have the names of around 13,960 candidates.

“We will later explain to the court why the commission had to publish a list that has fewer candidates than what the court ordered,” he said.

An education department official said: “There is an urgent need to recruit teachers as students are suffering. Thousands of teachers are retiring every year but we have been unable to replace them because of the pending court cases.

“Finally, the court has decided to bring an end to the impasse, at least at the upper primary level, by striking down the petitions of the unsuccessful candidates.”