The candidates who qualified for the Upper Primary Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) in 2014 staged a protest yesterday, November 29 in front of the APC Bhavan in Salt Lake, West Bengal, demanding an immediate call for interviews.
“The candidates were granted permission to demonstrate for seventy-two hours from the court, and they are demanding a seat update and immediate recruitment,” informed Achinta Samanta, the leader of the protests for the Primary TET candidates. However, Samanta does not belong to the Upper Primary TET group but stated that the cause for their fight remains the same.
To recall, TET 2014 candidates started a continuous protest last year from August to December, claiming loss of job opportunities due to an alleged recruitment scam in the state. It is noteworthy that the former education minister of the state and former president of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) is in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and an investigation is ongoing.
The protesting candidates mentioned that WB Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had guaranteed jobs in a press conference on November 11, 2020, to 20,000 TET-pass candidates of 2014, who could not be recruited because of the scam. There were 16,500 posts available and it was announced that they would be filled immediately, while the rest of the candidates would be appointed in stages.
The candidates appeared for a fresh round of interviews. But later, they found out that 3,929 posts were still vacant out of the total 16,500 through an RTI response. On top of this, the WBBPE announced that all the seats would be divided between 2014 and 2017 TET-qualified candidates. This did not sit well with the 2014 candidates as all the seats were initially promised to them.
Anisur Rahman, an Upper Primary TET candidate informed EdexLive that there are two sets of Upper Primary TET candidates. “Those who protested yesterday are demanding an update in vacancies while another group includes candidates who were successful in their interview and their counselling was done too but they are demanding an immediate joining date,” said Rahman. He also informed that those who belong to the second group of Upper Primary candidates also plan to demonstrate on December 4, at Shahid Minar.
