West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced that a notification for fresh teacher recruitment will be issued by the 31st of May following the Supreme Court’s directive to address the fallout from the West Bengal School Service Commission or the WBSSC recruitment scam. The recruitment, announced during a press conference at the state secretariat will potentially aim to fill 24,203 vacant teaching positions while offering relief measures to educators affected by the court’s previous ruling that invalidated over 25 thousand irregular appointments.
The Supreme Court’s decision was to combat fhe ‘large scale manipulation and fraud’ in the 2016 recruitment process, leading to the termination of thousands of teachers and staff in state funded schools. While expressing solidarity with the affected teachers, the CM reiterated that the West Bengal government will comply completely with the SC’s mandate. As a form of damage control, CM revealed that a relaxation in the upper limit of age of applicants and the inclusion of their prior experience in the new recruitment process, offering a lifeline to those who lost jobs.
The fresh recruitment process, with advertisements set for 30th May and applications open from June 15 to July 14, is expected to conclude by November 2025. Furthermore, the state is also applying for a review petition in the Supreme Court to reinstate eligible teachers, though the court’s summer recess has delayed proceedings. The initiative will hopefully also allow for recruitment of Group C and D staff into other government departments, addressing the exclusion of non-teaching staff from the fresh tests.
The announcements of re-examinations do not, however, sit well with the discontent protesting teachers who have taken to streets for reinstatement without one. The protestors have vowed to not sit for exams again if they are retaken.
