Kolkata, Sep 14 (IANS) The second round of the State Level Selection Test (SLST), conducted by the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) on Sunday concluded without any glitch, an official said.
The exam for the recruitment of teachers for Classes 11 and 12 (Higher Secondary), which began at 12 noon, ended at 1.30 p.m. However, the specially-abled candidates were given an extra 30 minutes.
There are 12,514 vacancies for Class 11 and 12. The total number of candidates appearing for the second round SLST is around 2 lakh 46 thousand.
After the exam, West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu said the exam was held smoothly and also mentioned some of the new methods adopted by the School Service Commission this year to maintain transparency in the examination.
Basu informed that the model answer sheets of the examination will be uploaded on the commission’s website by September 20. It will be preserved for two years.
“If any of the candidates have any objections regarding the model answer sheets, they should inform the WBSSC at its website within five days. After Durga Puja festivities, the results of the exams will be published. It will be informed who is eligible for the interview,” said Basu.
According to the minister, the interview round will start from November and the recruitment process will be completed by December 31.
The first round of SLST was conducted without a glitch last Sunday (September 7). Over 3.19 lakh candidates appeared in the first round of the exam.
While giving information related to the exams, Basu said that the number of candidates from other states in the September 7 exam was 31,362 and the same on today’s exam was 13,517. Such candidates were mostly from states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
According to WBSSC, the SLST is being conducted to fill up 35,726 teaching posts for Classes 9-10 and 11-12. Of these vacancies, 23,212 posts are for Classes 9 and 10, and 12,514 are for Classes 11 and 12. The overall number of applicants for the two phases of recruitment has crossed 5.65 lakh.
The fresh examination is being held against the backdrop of a teacher recruitment scam which rocked West Bengal politics for the last few years.
Several people, including former state education minister Partha Chatterjee, Trinamool MLA Jiban Krishna Saha and numerous officers of the state education department, were arrested by central investigation agencies for indulging in massive corruption to help candidates get teaching jobs in exchange for money and also by manipulation of OMR sheets.
These candidates had appeared in the 2016 SLST exam, the last time the WBSSC held a recruitment exam to fill teaching posts in Classes 9-10 and 11-12.
The Supreme Court, on April 3, annulled the appointment of about 26,000 teachers and non-teaching staff whose recruitment was carried out following the 2016 selection process.
The fresh exams are being held following a Supreme Court order, which also barred the previous panel’s (2016) tainted and ineligible candidates from appearing in the fresh exam.
On August 30, the WBSSC, as per the Supreme Court’s order, published the list of names of 1,806 tainted candidates who had bagged teaching jobs through the recruitment scam.
Meanwhile, Suman Biswas, convenor of the unemployed but qualified teachers forum, also appeared in today’s exam in Hooghly district. He was the face of multiple protests last month who had asked the state government to cancel exam and recruit the qualified candidates, who lost their jobs due to the scam, to the vacant teaching posts in state-run schools.
“Despite being eligible and clearing the exam last time, we are being forced to sit for the exam again. We are a victim of the system. We are facing the consequences of massive corruption,” said Biswas, who appeared in the exam at Hooghly Women’s College.
Meanwhile, Babita Sarkar, who was the first to file a petition at Calcutta High Court alleging widespread corruption in the recruitment process, also sat for the exam on Sunday.
Babita Sarkar, had filed a case in the Calcutta High Court alleging that Ankita Adhikary, daughter of former state minister Paresh Adhikary, had got the job illegally.
In May 2022, then Calcutta High Court Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay cancelled Ankita’s job.
The High Court also ordered her to return her salary. As a result, Babita got the job of the daughter of a former state minister and a salary of about Rs 15 lakh. Later, it was learned that there was a mistake in the evaluation of Babita’s marks. She also lost her job after another job-seeker named Anamika Roy filed a case. Finally, the same job went to Anamika Roy. However, Roy too lost the job after the Supreme Court cancelled the teaching and non-teaching jobs of about 26,000 candidates.
Speaking to media persons, Sarkar said: “There will always be questions about the impartiality of the WBSSC after what happened last time. Those who committed corruption were not punished. Those who indulged in corruption are once again conducting the exam.”
–IANS
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