The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) has decided to form two “high-powered” committees for Darjeeling and Kalimpong to look into issues ailing primary education at a time when the sector is under the scanner.

Anit Thapa, the chief executive of the GTA, said: “Our priority will be to improve primary education in the hills. We will form high-powered committees for Darjeeling and Kalimpong to look into the various issues.”

The committees will be headed by the president of district boards of Darjeeling (hill) areas and Kalimpong district and will include other prominent faces from the hill education sector. Darjeeling district board president Bijoy Rai is a member of Thapa’s Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM).

The Kalimpong counterpart is headed by Harka Bahadur Chhetri, former Kalimpong MLA and president of the Jana Andolan Party (JAP). Chhetri, however, has been sharing cordial relations with Thapa’s party of late. He was the chief speaker at the BGPM’s foundation day celebrations on September 9.

The decision to form a “high-powered” committee comes at a time when voices are being raised on the need to probe hiring of teachers in hill schools during the past decade and improve the overall standard of primary education in government schools.Nearly 600 teachers have been recruited since 2011 but there are allegations that many are under-qualified or got entry through nepotism.

In fact, the GTA has admitted in writing the illegalities in teacher’s appointment. Following the probe into teacher appointments in Bengal, a notice dated June 25, 2018 of the GTA (Memo No. 302 (899)/GTA-EDCN/2017-18) came into focus recently that stated the engagement of some voluntary teachers without “requisite qualifications” or were “whimsically” engaged.

Voluntary teacher is a unique concept for hill schools. Since the School Service Commission (SSC) is defunct since 2003, many schools engaged voluntary teachers purportedly against vacant posts.The system came into place right from the days of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), which was formed in 1988 and superseded by the GTA in 2012.

The DGHC had on July 30, 2010, written to all schools under them that “henceforth no volunteer teachers shall be appointed by the Schools/Managing Committee of the Schools without the written consent of the Education Department, Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, Darjeeling”.

The GTA’s 2018 order states “in many cases” the DGHC’s order was violated. Earlier the state government had refused to regularise the services of voluntary teachers but later the government went against its own stand to regularise their services. Recently, BJP MLA from Kurseong B.P.Bajgain also submitted a list of all the teachers appointed since 2011 to the enforcement directorate on September 1.