The state has extended its stay on the transfer of teachers at all government-aided schools because the recruitment of new teachers has not yet started owing to a barrage of litigation.

An official of the department said that they could not appoint teachers since
2016 at the secondary and higher secondary levels and 2020 at the primary level and so there is already a teacher deficit.

“Therefore the suspension of transfer which was in force till June 30 has been extended till December 31 of this year,” he said.

The recruitment of teachers based on TET (Teachers’ Eligibility Test) 2017, held in 2021, could not be started because several petitioners moved Calcutta High Court challenging some of the questions set in the written examination.

Cases have been filed alleging irregularities in the appointment of teachers based on TET 2014, which was held in 2015.

The state government had launched an online portal to bring transparency in the transfer of teachers of state-aided schools in August 2021.

Before this, transfer was only allowed on special grounds.

“Initially, we had to stop the transfer because many teachers shifted to schools in urban areas from rural areas. Now we are unable to transfer because of the pause on teacher recruitments,” said an official.

“Although thousands of teachers have retired over the past few years, we have not been able to fill up the posts.”

The government schools are outside the ambit of transfer because the commissioner of school education department oversees the affairs of such schools.

An official of the state primary education board said although they held TET in December 2022, recruitment of those who wrote the tests could not be started because of the petitions challenging some of the questions set in the screening test.

The school service commission did not hold any school-level selection test (SLST) after 2017 following complaints of irregularities in the appointment of teachers at the secondary and higher secondary schools based on an SLST held in 2015.

An order of the department issued on Friday says: “And whereas, the online recruitment process of primary teachers is yet to be completed. And whereas the competent authority has considered to extend the suspension of online transfer portal....”

A separate order of the department says since the school service commission and the state secondary education board requested the department to extend the suspension period of Utsashree portal, the period of suspension has been extended till December 31

Swapan Mandal, general secretary of the Bengal Teachers’ and Employees’ Association said: “Cases have been filed against the recruitment process because of the irregularities. The teaching job aspirants have moved court because they were denied jobs and underserving candidates had been appointed. The entire education system is suffering because of the department’s mistakes.”

Manik Bhattacharya, during whose tenure as president of the primary board TET
was held in 2015 and 2021, was arrested by the CBI in October 2022 for his alleged involvement in the irregularities.