After storming to power for a second consecutive term in 2016, the Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) led by stormy petrel chief minister Mamata Banerjee, has established its supremacy in West Bengal (pop. 91 million). The 2016 assembly election results have vindicated the TMC’s socialist populism. Metalled roads in more than 170 rural constituencies, village electrification, rice at Rs.2 per kg and education scholarships for women and students have proved to be a winning strategy, which has overshadowed corruption.

However, the state’s once vaunted education system, which was heavily infiltrated and ruined by ill-educated CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) apparatchiks and cadres, has hit an all-time low with the almost complete suspension of teacher recruitment because of recruitment test scandals.

But, following an order passed by Justice C.S. Karnan of the Calcutta high court on September 14 directing the TMC government to immediately declare the results of the state’s Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) 2015, the School Service Commission (SSC) and West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) have published the scores of 492,000 candidates who wrote the upper primary TET held on August 16, 2015 and of 2.2 million who wrote the primary TET on October 11 last year. Although SSC and WBBPE are yet to declare the number of successful candidates, according to education minister Partha Chattopadhyay, about 124,000 candidates passed the primary TET.

Adhering to chief minister Banerjee’s promise to appoint 60,000 teachers immediately after the Calcutta high court’s judgement in several pending cases, SSC and WBBPE have published recruitment ads for teachers in primary and upper primary schools. More than 18,000 aspirant teachers who cleared the tainted TET 2011 are also eligible for recruitment together with those who qualified in 2015. According to the recruitment ads, there are 14,088 vacancies in West Bengal’s public upper primaries and 41,559 in primary schools. With an additional 16,529 teacher vacancies in government high schools, there’s an imminent possibility of a massive cohort of 72,176 teachers being recruited for the state’s 92,000 government schools this year.

Inevitably, in this once economically prosperous eastern seaboard state ruined by 34 years of uninterrupted rule of the CPM-led Left Front governments during which West Bengal suffered massive de-industrialisation and capital flight as a result of which jobs for the educated middle class are scarce, candidates who have failed to clear TET are alleging fudging of results. According to Tulsi Masant, convenor of the DL.Ed (diploma in elementary education) Students Forum, the state government is violating guidelines of the Delhi-based NCTE (National Council for Teacher Education) which stipulates that only candidates who have passed the B.Ed exam are eligible to write TET. “The relaxation period for recruiting untrained candidates expired on March 31 this year. Thus, only trained candidates are eligible for appointment as teachers in government schools. Our agitation against this malpractice by the state government will continue till graduate teachers are given a fair chance,” says Masant.

However, Swapan Mandol, assistant general-secretary of the Bengal Teachers and Employees’ Association, who has been a vocal critic of TET irregularities, has welcomed the declaration of TET 2015 results. “Removal of legal hurdles and the process of recruiting teachers for government schools having begun, not only will children’s learning outcomes improve, West Bengal’s unemployment problem will also reduce,” says Mandol.

Certainly, in neglected West Bengal where the number of registered educated unemployed is a massive 7.6 million, recruitment of more than 70,000 teachers this year will boost the economy and improve the standing of the TMC government with the influential bhadralok (educated middle class) who are fast losing faith in Banerjee and the TMC government.

Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)