Kolkata, Oct 18 (PTI) At least 500 candidates, claiming to have cleared Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) in 2014, are staging an indefinite sit-in outside the office of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education in Salt Lake over the past two days, demanding that they be given immediate job appointment letters.
Twenty of them began a hunger strike on Tuesday morning, asserting that they would not call off the protest till an acceptable solution is offered to them.
The agitators said that they had cleared the written TET exam and interview rounds but did not get jobs vide its panel, which, according to the board, has expired.
Kaushik Das, one of the agitators, said they would “go to any extent” to get justice.
“We will not sit for the exam and interview again, having already cleared those rounds. If the education department and the board do not pay heed to our demands, our movement will intensify,” he added.
Soma Barik, a candidate on hunger strike, said the chief minister should honour her commitment to recruit all qualified TET candidates at state-run or state-aided primary schools.
“We will die but not move away from the site of the protest till we get our appointment letters,” she stated.
Despite police persuasion to vacate the site of protest, the agitators refused to budge, partially blocking one side of the road near Karunamoyee in Salt Lake.
Notably, former board chairman Manik Bhattacharya, also a ruling Trinamool Congress MLA, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on October 11 in connection with the alleged irregularities in the recruitment process of primary teachers in the state.
Bhattacharya was removed from the post of chairman on an order of the Calcutta High Court, before which a number of petitions have been moved alleging graft in the appointment process of teachers in state-sponsored and -aided schools. PTI SUS RMS RMS
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