Education dept to bid farewell to waiting lists, adopt online declaration of vacancies

Kolkata: The state Education department is all set to introduce online procedure for declaration of vacancies and will also do away with the existing system of publication of waiting list.

"We have gone through all School Service Commission (SSC) related documents. We are ushering in change in the SSC rules with the aim to have more transparency in the system. The schools would upload their vacancies online and the School Education department would allot teachers accordingly. This system would do away with the role of district inspectors, who presently forward the schools' vacancy lists to the department," said state Education minister Partha Chatterjee at the state Assembly, after placing the Budget for School Education and Higher Education department for 2019-20.

During his budget speech, Chatterjee said that his department has proposed a revision in the rules of SSC and Teachers' Eligibility Test (TET) for transparency and fast-tracking of teachers' recruitment.

Chatterjee said in the Assembly that if things go as per plans, the rules will come into effect before the next SSC examination. The proposed revised SSC rule has been sent for Cabinet approval and is expected to be introduced from the next examination onwards.

According to the minister, the selection of candidates would be carried out through the process of elimination and the department would publish only the list of selected candidates. "There is no reason for publishing any waiting list," he told reporters in his chamber later.

For a vacancy of 10 teaching posts, the merit list would now include the names of exactly 10 candidates. At present, the names of 14 candidates are published against 10 vacant posts.

The minister maintained that his department has already rationalised the teacher-student ratio in Dooars and in three remote islands in Sunderbans. "We will also give protection to in-service teachers," he added.

Chatterjee pointed out that in 2011, there were 1,09,794 primary teachers and in 2019, the figure has gone up to 2,16,381. In the upper primary level, there were 1,16,051 teachers in 2011 and in 2019, there are 1,13,936 teachers, while another 14,000 will be recruited soon.

He further said that guest lecturers will get weightage

in the College Service Commission examination, if they are eligible under the UGC norms.

There are 2,500 guest lecturers that have been recruited by the managing committees of colleges without the state government's permission. Out of these guest lecturers, 40 percent qualify the UGC eligibility norms.