Around 300 candidates who appeared in the West Bengal School Service Commission’s (WB SSC) teacher recruitment exam, but allegedly did not meet the cut-off mark required for an interview, despite getting good marks, launched a protest march in Kolkata yesterday, November 17.
They marched from Karunamoyee Crossing to Bikash Bhavan, the education department's headquarters in Salt Lake City, but were stopped by police near Central Park shortly after, claiming they did not have permission to organise the protest.
They remained where they had been halted, impeding vehicular traffic, until the police forcibly removed them after almost six hours, PTI reports.
The West Bengal School Service Commission held a recruitment exam on September 14 after the Supreme Court invalidated the WB SSC's 2016 panel in April, cancelling the appointments of nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff in state-run and aided institutions after determining that the selection process was tainted.
The 'untainted' teachers who were fired by the court order but were not found to be involved in the irregularities were allowed to reapply for the exam.
After the WB SSC published the list of approximately 20,500 candidates who were called for the pre-interview verification, it is claimed that several of the fresh examinees did not receive a call despite obtaining good marks.
The police deployed a large contingent as the protesters refused to disperse, insisting they would remain until their demands were met. After talks failed, the police dispersed the crowd and cleared the main road connecting the IT hub of Sector.
Some demonstrators were taken into police vans, while others were chased away. The Karunamoyee Metro Station experienced commotion as commuters were startled by the sloganeering protesters.
The demonstrators sought a three-point charter of demands from the state education department.
They sought withdrawal of the 10 marks awarded to job-lost teachers, which fresh candidates claim “unfairly” tilted the selection process towards them.
Their other demands are making public the OMR sheets of all candidates called for verification to ensure transparency, and increasing the number of vacant posts to one lakh because of the prolonged delay in WB SSC exams and continuing unemployment.
