Teachers in South Dinajpur are a disappointed lot after the district failed to find a place in the state government’s list of best schools and teachers for the fourth consecutive time this year.

As the government has prepared the list of schools and teachers across the state that will be awarded on Teachers’ Day on 5 September, no primary school and no teacher from either the primary or higher level in the district has been selected for the Shiksha Ratna Award this year.

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On the other hand, in a joint venture of UNICEF and the state education department, several schools in the district have topped the Jamini Roy Award list as the best schools in the state in recent years.

“However, those schools have also not found a place in the list of best schools in the district in the last few years. The last time the district received the best school award was in 2016 when the top honours had gone to the Chechai Primary School in Tapan block. After that, no other school in the district has received this award,” sources said.

“After 2016, no primary, secondary or college teacher has received the Shiksha Ratna award in the district,” they added.

According to the sources, several teachers, including headmasters of different schools under the Kushmandi, Kumarganj and other blocks, had applied for the award this year, but no one was selected for the top honours.

“However, as the government on Saturday night sent the list for the Shiksha Ratna Awards to the district school inspectors’ offices, there was no one from South Dinajpur district,” the sources said.

According to the winner of the National Teachers’ Award in the district, Pabitra Mahanta, teachers in the district are obviously disappointed as not a single teacher from the district received the award this time as well.

“However, according to UNICEF and the state government’s education department, Chakdapat Primary School in Hili block became the first school in the state to win the Jamini Roy Award for Best School in the state. Schools in the district that are considered the best in the state are not finding their place in the state government’s award list for the past four years. This is leading to frustration and anger among the teachers here,” Mr Mahanta said.

The district president of the Paschimbanga Trinamul Madhyamik Siksakh Samiti, Ujjal Basak, said, “It is not true that our district is not receiving the award for the past four years. It is only for the last two years that no school and no teacher from our district have been selected. This is very shocking. We have so many able teachers and well-decorated schools with good infrastructure. The committee which is responsible for that should be very careful next time before sending proposals. This year, we had sent four teachers’ names for final selection. Let us hope for the best next year.”