Kolkata: Hundreds of candidates who cleared the 2022 Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) staged a demonstration here on Tuesday, demanding immediate recruitment to primary schools and publication of merit panels for appointments.
The protesters, carrying placards and raising slogans, marched from Karunamoyee crossing in Salt Lake to the West Bengal Board of Primary Education's (WBBPE) office near Bikash Bhavan, urging the board to expedite the recruitment process and issue appointment letters to eligible candidates.
Police personnel were deployed at Karunamoyee and around the board's office to prevent any untoward incident.
The candidates alleged that despite clearing the eligibility exam and fulfilling the required criteria, thousands of qualified aspirants had been waiting for appointments for years, even as a large number of teaching posts remained vacant in government-run primary schools.
"We have cleared the eligibility exams and fulfilled the required criteria, but there has been no clarity on when the recruitment process will be completed. We want the board to announce a definite recruitment schedule, conduct interviews and publish the merit panels at the earliest," Soma Maity, one of the protesters, said.
The candidates demanded that the board initiate recruitment against an estimated 50,000 vacant primary teacher posts, alleging that repeated delays had jeopardised the future of qualified aspirants.
One of the placards read, "4,432 new posts should be filled up in primary schools. Help us realise our dream of becoming teachers."
Maity, who is associated with the TET Candidates' Forum, also sought the intervention of Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari to resolve the issue.
"The BJP had supported us in the past. We seek the intervention of the chief minister to resolve the issue," she said.
They also said they did not want to continue their agitation indefinitely and wished to submit a memorandum to a senior education department official.
Primary Board sources, however, said the recruitment process was facing considerable hurdles due to multiple cases pending before different courts.
The authorities needed to take the ongoing legal proceedings into account before proceeding with further recruitment-related formalities, they said.
The board was also facing difficulties in moving ahead with fresh TET examinations while recruitment processes involving earlier batches remained unresolved, the sources added.
The delay has particularly affected candidates who appeared in the December 2022 TET examination, the results of which were declared in February 2023.
Of the approximately 6.19 lakh candidates who appeared for the examination, around 1.5 lakh had qualified.
Despite qualifying in the examination, a substantial number of candidates are still awaiting the completion of the subsequent recruitment process.
The latest demonstration reflects growing frustration among the qualified candidates, who have repeatedly taken to the streets seeking a time-bound recruitment process and an end to the prolonged uncertainty over their appointments.
The protesters said they would continue their agitation until the board announced concrete steps towards filling the vacant posts and completing the recruitment process.
This report was published from a wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.