After several controversies over the teachers’ recruitment at various levels, the West Bengal Board of Primary Education (WBBPE) has decided to make the recruitment process of primary teachers in state-run schools “totally transparent” through video-recording of the selection process.
Starting from written examination and its marking, interview and subsequent counselling, the entire process will be video-recorded, sources from the state education department said.
WBBPE is the first teachers’ recruitment autonomous body to agree to this monitoring system to bring about 100 per cent transparency in the recruitment system and it is expected that in future West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) might also take similar steps to ensure this clarity factor.
The move has been mooted at a time when the former state education minister, Partha Chatterjee, Trinamool Congress legislator and former WBPEE president, Manik Bhattacharjee and several top officials of WBSSC are in judicial and central agency custody.
It had been mentioned in the chargesheets that there were several cases where marks of ineligible candidates submitting blank optical mark recognition (OMR) sheets were awarded marks as high as 53 in the commission’s server at a later stage.
“Once the entire system of recruitment process is video-recorded, there will be no scope for such irregularities in the future and also, a 100 per cent clarity in the entire recruitment process can be maintained,” a state education department official said.
In fact, the newly appointed WBBPE chairman, Gautam Pal, in his first press conference after assuming the chair claimed that his first priority would be to make the recruitment process totally free of corruption.