The Mamata Banerjee government is working on a proposal to maintain a centralised online system of monitoring the strength of teachers and their vacancies at all state-aided secondary schools in Bengal, education minister Partha Chatterjee said in the Assembly on Thursday.

The move is being initiated to simplify the process of recruiting schoolteachers by the state school service commission, the minister said after participating in the discussions on the school education budget for 2019-20.

In the existing system, when there is a vacancy in a school, the institution would be first required to inform the office of the local district inspector of schools. The DI office would then send the request for filling the vacancy to the state director of school education (DSE) in the school education department headquarters at Bikash Bhavan in Salt Lake. The DSE would then refer the request to the West Bengal School Service Commission. A centralised examination is then finally held by the commission to fill the vacancies.

“We need to simply this process. We will soon place the proposal in the state cabinet for discussion. After that, the new system will be implemented,” said Chatterjee.