Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today stressed on including a course to build the moral character of students in the school syllabus while announcing recruitment of 89,000 teachers and clarifying that it is not possible for her alone to combat corruption. “If you ask me whether I can prevent corruption 100 per cent then I would ask if even god can ensure it. How greedy a person is, depends on his/her individual self.

Sometimes bad-company makes a person bad. All my five fingers are not the same. Similarly, in a society not all are good or all are bad. But to criticise all people for the fault of an individual is wrong,” said Miss Banerjee while addressing a programme on the occasion of Teachers’ Day to felicitate both teachers and meritorious students. Miss Banerjee further claimed that all documents, under the erstwhile Left Front government were made to vanish leaving no scope for unearthing any irregularity.

“A mistake has been committed. During our tenure, we have all the documents and since there are papers so mistakes could be identified. But when we came to power after the Left Front’s regime, we could not find any paper or document or any such cupboard. Every paper had vanished so corruption could not be traced,” she added.

The chief minister’s statements have come at a time when her party is on the backfoot over the arrest of senior minister and former education minister Partha Chatterjee in connection with the alleged teachers’ recruitment scam. Last month, central agencies raided the houses of Chatterjee and his confidante Arpita and recovered crores of cash and jewellery.

Miss Banerjee clarified that all those who have been denied justice will be given justice during her tenure itself. “When I had seen a few students sitting on the road protesting against non-inclusion in the merit list for teachers’ recruitment, I had met them. The former education minister (Partha Chatterjee) had informed me that they did not possess the required marks. Being the soft-hearted person that I am, I asked the then minister to do something for those students,” she said.

Announcing that recruitment of 89,000 teachers is on the fray, Miss Banerjee said she is eager to recruit teachers but her initiative is hindered by the frequent slapping of Public Interest Litigations (PILs). “We will recruit 89,000 teachers but it has become a time-consuming process. The scope for new jobs is getting difficult due to the PILs. One after the other PILs are being filed worsening the situation,” she said.

Deliberating on the importance of building the moral character of students, Miss Banerjee said: “I would request teachers to allot one class towards moral character building.

In fact, I would ask the education minister (Bratya Basu) to include this in the school syllabus. It is not important as to how much money I have because the money that I possess today may not be there tomorrow. What is important is what kind of a human being I am.” On the occasion, 61 teachers, including 21 university teachers and 1,137 meritorious students were awarded.