Despite large-scale recruitment of teachers in Bihar through the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) since mid-2023, it is turning out to be a channelling exercise for the department to weed out those who are undeserving and who managed to cheat the process to get jobs.
Documents of out-of-state teachers appointed through Teachers’ Recruitment Examination (TRE) – 1 and 2 despite not meeting the criteria of at least 60% marks in the Central Teachers Eligibility Test (CTET) are under scrutiny. Teachers are being removed every day after discrepancies were found across districts.
However, the department does not have the exact figures of such teachers, who have been expelled or are in the process of being expelled for not fulfilling the conditions laid down for candidates from outside the state. “The verification process is underway at the district level and we do not have the cumulative figures at this stage,” said a senior official of the department.
However, he fears the number could rise to hundreds due to the rate at which discrepancies are detected and teachers dismissed. “The senior positions of regional deputy directors (RDD) for
“Bihar Education Service officers in eight out of nine divisions are paying additional charge, so we are not fully aware of the issues related to recruitment of teachers,” he added.
On Thursday, the Patna High Court also directed the state government and the BPSC to file their affidavits within four weeks on the writ petition filed seeking cancellation of the results and supplementary results of 8,000 computer science teachers in higher secondary schools. They were appointed through TRE-1.
The petitioner’s counsel told the bench of Justice Anjani Kumar Sharan that over 900 candidates acquired the required qualification for the post after the TRE-1 notification. “There seems to be a lot of discrepancies in the results,” said advocate Vikas Kumar Pankaj.
Last month, a day before the third phase of the teachers’ recruitment examination (TRE-3) was to be held from July 19 to 22, the Patna High Court had directed the education department to release the supplementary results of TRE-1 held last year while hearing a batch of over 100 petitions, while the demand for supplementary results of TRE-2 is also being raised.
Though the BPSC had released the supplementary results of TRE-1, many candidates felt disenfranchised and approached the tribunal. The tribunal verdict will benefit hundreds of candidates and may also give impetus to the growing demand for supplementary results of TRE-2.
Earlier in May, the Hc had stayed the February 7, 2024 advertisement of the BPSC for recruitment of teachers and directed the state government to take a final decision on the issue of weightage of guest teachers on the lines of contractual teachers.
As the department grapples with this new challenge amid its efforts to improve the conditions of schools, the vigilance probe involving teachers appointed between 2006 and 2015 through panchayat-raj institutions and urban local bodies has come to a standstill. Nearly 1.87 lakh of them have also cleared the competency test to obtain the status of government employee, while the rest will take the test in future.
“We are carrying out the investigation as ordered, though there is no judicial oversight now. Even this year, till July 25, the vigilance bureau has filed 50 FIRs against as many accused after forged documents were detected,” said director general (vigilance) Alok Raj.
On May 18, 2015, the High Court under the then Chief Justice L. Narasimha Reddy and Justice Sudhir Singh ordered an inquiry and directed the state vigilance investigation bureau to collect all the folders containing documents of the teachers for three weeks. While hundreds of complaints were lodged and some teachers were also expelled, the investigation is still on and the hunt for the missing folders is going on, while several teachers also retired during the period.
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