Education minister Bratya Basu on Wednesday cited the number of vacant teacher posts at various levels in government-aided schools and the figures add up to more than 45,000.
A day before, on Tuesday, he had said on the floor of the Assembly that the number of vacant teacher posts in schools was only 781. The figure, he had said, included higher secondary, secondary, primary and upper primary levels put together.
On Wednesday, in his chamber on the Assembly premises, the minister said he wanted to “put an end to this controversy” with facts and figures. Those facts and figures were very different from what the minister had cited the day before in response to a question from an Opposition MLA.
How did the minister arrive at this abysmally low figure?
“After we sent the figures of vacancies (45,000-odd) to the state primary education board and the central school service commission, some handful (of vacancies) still remained (with the state education department) and I commented about this on the floor of the Assembly yesterday,” the minister said on Wednesday.
Technically, the education board and the school service commission are autonomous bodies and not part of the government.
Basu said: “Whatever I said on Tuesday on the issue of vacancies has triggered
certain controversies and I want to end these controversies with some facts and figures.”
Even then the arithmetic behind 781 was wrong, by the minister’s own admission.
“After sending the details of the vacant posts (to the two recruitment bodies), the actual count of the leftover (vacant) posts is substantially higher than what was mentioned on Tuesday. I cannot give the exact figures at this moment, I will speak about this in the future after gathering detailed facts,” the minister told reporters on Wednesday.
It is rare for an education minister to provide “misleading or incorrect” data on the floor of the Assembly, many academics said.
The data mismatch happened at a time when the Mamata Banerjee government has been drawing a lot of flak over complaints of irregularities in the appointment of teachers and other school staff.
The minister on Wednesday gave details of the vacant posts.
“We have sent vacancy figures of 11,765 and 14,339 for the primary (Classes 1 to V) and upper primary (Classed VI to VIII) levels to the state primary board. The board is conducting counselling for the recruitment of teachers at the primary level following court’s directives,” Basu said.
“We have sent vacancy figures of a little over 13,500 and 5,500 for the secondary and higher secondary levels to the school service commission.”
The vacancy figures mentioned by the education minister total 45,000-plus.
Sources in the department said what the minister had said on Tuesday triggered controversies as the state government has not been able to carry out any recruitment drive over the past few years.
The recruitment at various levels is stuck following litigation in which the teaching job aspirants have filed cases against each other alleging irregularities in appointment, said a board official.