Transfer of teachers stalled, states Education dept in notification

Kolkata: The state School Education department on Friday brought out a notification, stalling the transfer process of teachers both in the primary and secondary level until further notice.

"All kinds of teachers' transfer orders are stopped until further order. No application or cases for transfer of primary or secondary teachers will be entertained until further notice," the notification stated.

"We want to have a clear idea of the transfer of teachers that have taken place in the last few months, before further going for teacher transfer. So, we have stalled it for now," state Education minister Partha Chatterjee said.

A senior official of the state School Education department said that instructions in this regard have already been issued to the district inspector (DI) of schools and also to the headmasters of the state schools.

It may be mentioned that after the incident at Daribhit High School in North Dinajpur, where two students were killed in a clash that broke out over teacher recruitment, state Education minister Partha Chatterjee had directed all the DIs to submit a report to the department by October 5, stating the student and teacher strength, the infrastructure of the schools under their respective jurisdiction and other details. "The DIs are expected to submit their report by today (Friday). We will examine the vacancies at the schools on the basis of the report. In recent times, there has been a number of teacher transfers. In Daribhit High School, there was no need of Urdu teachers and neither was there any vacancy. But the school was in the process of recruiting a teacher for Urdu, which led to the unfortunate incident," the official maintained.

The state Education department wants to have a clear picture of the strength of teachers and students, the vacancies, transfers in recent times and other nitty gritties to prevent such incidents in future.

It may be mentioned that on September 25, Chatterjee held a meeting with the District Inspectors (DIs) and expressed his displeasure over the decision of shuffling teachers at Daribhit High School in Islampur and reprimanded some of them for their aggressive role in the recruitment or shuffling of teachers.