Some district inspectors (DIs) of schools have written to school heads asking how many teachers have been assigned election duty, the query following the high court order cancelling the appointment of 25,753 teachers and non-teaching employees at government-aided schools.
The Election Commission of India was staring at a shortfall of polling officials following Monday’s verdict as many of the teaching and non-teaching employees who had been appointed based on their performance in the state-level selection test (SLST) and the regional-level selection test (RLST) held in 2016 have been assigned poll duty.
The SLST was held to appoint teachers and the RLST to appoint non-teaching employees.
The entire panels of selected candidates based on the SLST and the RLST in 2016 have been scrapped by the high court.
The district electoral officers have asked the DIs how many teaching and non-teaching employees recruited after the 2016 tests have been drafted for election work.
A DI said they have sent a Google form to school heads seeking to know whether the teaching and non-teaching employees who have attended training for election work had been recruited based on their performance in the 2016 tests.
“Once we get the details, the list has to be finalised after making necessary replacements,” the DI said.
Another DI said the district electoral officer has been pushing them to share information on the teachers who are set to lose their jobs following the high court order.
Education department officials said over 15,000 of the teachers whose appointments have been revoked underwent training for poll duty.
The headmaster of a school in Nadia district said they were told to share the details by April 23.
“In my school, out of the six teachers and two non-teaching employees who were recruited based on the 2016 tests, five have been assigned poll duty. As far as I know, all of then got jobs through fair means. But they stand to lose their jobs following the court order,” the headmaster said.
Swapan Mandal, of the Bengal Teachers’ and Employees’ Association, said: “The order of the division bench of the high court came barely days before the second phase of the Lok Sabha polls, scheduled for April 26. Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat will go to the polls that day. It will be difficult to get replacements by then.”