Teachers trained by 2019 as per order by NCTE: State primary education board

The state primary education board president on Saturday said 36,000 primary school teachers who stand to lose their jobs on grounds of not having training, following a Calcutta High Court order, had been trained by 2019 in compliance with a directive from the National Council for Teachers’ Education.

Board president Goutam Paul said they would move a higher court against Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay’s order on the termination of jobs to raise this point.

The board is going to move court early next week so they can secure a stay on Justice Gangopadhyay’s order, a board official said.

He said the NCTE had granted the board permission to recruit the untrained candidates as teachers in government-aided primary schools and then train them by 2019 after then Union human resources minister Smriti Irani relaxed norms so untrained candidates could write the teachers’ eligibility test (TET) in 2015.

The official said during the appeal, the court would be apprised that the Union education ministry had accorded the Bengal government a one-time permission to recruit untrained candidates as teachers. “The NCTE, under the Union education ministry, permitted us to get untrained candidates, who had been recruited as teachers, trained by 2019. If the board moves court, we would highlight this point,” Goutam Paul told Metro on Saturday.

The NCTE’s decision to complete the training by 2019 was in continuation of the relaxation of norms that then HRD minister Irani had accorded to the Bengal government in 2015, said a senior board official.

Justice Gangopadhyay on Friday cancelled the jobs of over 36,000 teachers in government-aided primary schools because they did not have a diploma in elementary education (DElEd) training when they were recruited in 2016.

A board official said the decision to recruit untrained candidates was not without reason. “As it came to the fore that the state did not have enough trained candidates ahead of conducting TET in October 2015, chief minister Mamata Banerjee in March that year wrote to then Union education minister Irani so untrained candidates could be appointed as teachers, given that the state was reeling under a crunch of teachers. In April of the same year, Irani had extended the relaxation till 2016,” said the board official.