Mita Mukherjee

The recent Calcutta High Court verdict in cash–for jobs scam cancelling the jobs of over 25,700 teachers and non-teaching employees has resulted in a sudden drop in the number of teachers in state-aided schools in Bengal that are running Classes IX to XII.

Along with the teacher crisis, this has also posed a series of other problems which the institutions had never faced before, several schools said.

With the posts of nearly 18, 500 teachers appointed exclusively to teach students studying in the higher classes (IX to XII) falling vacant after the verdict, the schools are forced to assign teachers of lower classes qualified to teach learners below Class IX, to teach students of Classes IX to XII.

This, according to many schools,  will compel students of higher classes to be taught by “less qualified” teachers, and at the same time this would lead to overburdening teachers of junior sections. As a chain effect, the students of classes below IX too will suffer because the teachers who are supposed to teach only till Class VIII will have to do the additional work for attending Classes IX to XII.

The Lok Sabha elections which are already under progress has made the crisis even more serious because a considerable number of teachers from almost every 15,000 odd schools having Classes IX to XII have been engaged in election duties.

Meanwhile, the state government on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Calcutta High Court order scrapping the appointment of 27,753 teaching and non-teaching employees who were selected from the 2016 state-level selection test panel.

“ We have moved the Supreme Court today challenging the High Court order,” Siddhartha Majumdar, chairperson of state School Service Commission told EducationWorld.     

There are nearly 6000 higher secondary (XI and XII) schools in the state and in most of these schools there is only a single teacher in each subject to teach Classes XI and XII. A large number of schools now have no teacher at all to teach important subjects like physics, chemistry and mathematics in the higher secondary units.

A school in north Calcutta said it had no teacher in chemistry for Classes XI and XII for more than five years. In 2018 a chemistry teacher was appointed from the 2016 panel that stands cancelled now following the court order. As a result the chemistry department is again without a permanent chemistry teacher.

“We now have no chemistry teacher for our higher secondary unit. But we cannot stop teaching the subject to our students. So, we are forced to engage teachers from the junior classes for teaching the subject in Classes XI and XII. The 2018 appointee who has been sacked after the court order has a postgraduate degree in chemistry and was NET qualified. The teacher from the junior section who will be teaching the subject temporarily is an ordinary graduate,” the headmaster of the school said.

It is mandatory for teachers to have a postgraduate degree to teach in the higher secondary section. A graduate with honours is eligible to teach in Classes IX and X and to teach in Classes below IX only an ordinary pass graduate degree is required, a source in the school education department said.  

Bulk of the teachers of Classes IX and X whose job has been taken away had postgraduate degrees, the source said.

The headmaster of a school in south Kolkata said his institution had no teacher at all in education for its higher secondary section. In 2019, a teacher from the 2016 panel was appointed to teach the subject. The post has fallen vacant again after the court verdict.       

“ Education is a subject which is not taught till Class VIII. Since we do not have a teacher in education for the junior classes, it has become difficult for us to conduct the education classes in XI and XII,” the headmaster told EducationWorld.

Also read: Bengal government challenges HC order on 25K+ teacher appointments in SC