The State School Service Commission (SSC) on Friday published the initial schedule for counselling candidates who took the State Level Selection Test in 2015 to get teaching jobs at government-aided upper primary schools (Class VIII to VIII).
The schedule was published two days after the commission published a list of around 14,000 candidates to be called for counselling, marking the resumption of the process of hiring assistant teachers at any level over the past few years.
“In compliance with the order of Hon’ble Division Bench, High Court, Calcutta dated 28.08.2024.... and other connected matters, the initial schedule for counselling is hereby issued in terms of the panel already published by the West Bengal School Service Commission.....,” said a notice issued on Friday evening.
The notice signed by the commission’s secretary stated: “Intimation letter for Counselling can be downloaded by the concerned candidates from the website of the Commission i.e. www.westbengalssc.com as per instruction to be published by the Commission on 1.10.2024. Further, the relevant vacancy details will also be available on the website on the same date (1.10.2024).”
According to the schedule, counselling for some subjects like pure science, geography, history and Nepali would be held on October 3 and 4.
The notice mentioned the specific dates which have been earmarked for each subject.
The counselling for the remaining subjects like English, bio-science, Bengali, Urdu, Arabic and Hindi will be held from October 24 to October 28.
“We have split the dates as the Puja vacation will start. Since we have to call more candidates beyond October 28, so the Friday’s notice has been termed as an initial schedule,” said Siddhartha Majumdar, the commission’s chairperson.
The counselling will be held at Acharya Sadan, the headquarters of the commission in Salt Lake.
A Calcutta High Court division bench had on August 28 asked the commission to recruit 14,052 assistant teachers within eight weeks, dismissing a petition of the “unsuccessful candidates” who, the court said had no right to stall the recruitment process on the ground that the results were “not palpable to them”.
The last impediment to recruitment was removed when a division bench of the Supreme Court headed by the Chief Justice DY Chandrachud on Tuesday dismissed a special leave petition seeking a stay on the order of the high court.
Sushanta Ghosh, the president of the West Bengal Upper Primary Teaching Job Aspirants’ Forum said they are relieved as the roadblocks to the recruitment process have been cleared and the counselling schedule has been declared.
The teaching job aspirants had appeared for the written test in August 2015.
A recruitment advertisement based on those who wrote the test a year ago was published in August 2016. Those who cracked the test later went through a personality test.
A combination of performance in the written test, personality test and academic performance — awarding of weightage based on scores obtained at the Class-X board examination, Class XII board examination and bachelors programme — led to the formation of the list containing names of the candidates who have been called for counselling.
An official of the education department said the start of the recruitment process at the upper primary level has assumed significance as the recruitment at the primary (Classes I-V), secondary (Classes IX-X) and higher secondary (Classes XI-XII) levels is stuck because of litigations over alleged irregularities.
The commission in May 2022 gave an advertisement to hold written tests for the appointment of headmasters/mistresses and assistant teachers at the secondary and higher secondary level of the government-aided schools.
But the commission is yet to announce when the written tests will be held.
