A total of 229,497 candidates sat for the School Service Commission (SSC) examinations on Sunday for the recruitment of assistant teachers for classes 11 and 12 in government-aided schools across West Bengal.
According to Education Minister Bratya Basu, this figure represents approximately 93 per cent of the 2.46 lakh registered candidates. The School Level Selection Test (SLST), which is being held for the first time in nine years, took place at 478 centres, all located within educational institutions.
Basu noted that 13,517 of the candidates came from outside the state, with the majority travelling from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. This follows a similar trend from the first phase of the SLST on 7th September, when 91 pc of the 3.19 lakh candidates appeared for the classes 9 and 10 recruitment exam. Of those, 31,362 were also from outside Bengal, primarily from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
“I don’t want to make political comments, but these figures show how much the 'double-engine' governments in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have succeeded or failed in tackling unemployment and creating job opportunities for the educated youth there,” Basu said.
This new recruitment process was initiated after around 26,000 teachers and non-teaching staff lost their jobs following a Supreme Court ruling that declared the 2016 recruitment process “tainted and vitiated”.
The minister also thanked the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) for ensuring transparency, stating that there has been a significant focus on OMR sheets and on preserving copies for candidates. He expressed hope that this new process would be fair and would protect the interests of deserving candidates.
Chinmoy Mondal, a candidate and a member of the Deserving Teachers Rights Forum, spoke about his experience. “We had qualified in the 2016 exams and still lost our jobs because of corruption by a section of those in the establishment,” he said. “Today, my exams went well again. I hope that I will not be a victim of the circumstances again for the fault of the commission.”
Also read: Partha shuffled WBSSC officials to aid recruitment scam: CBI
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