'Earned My WBSSC Teacher Job on Merit, Now Paying for Somebody Else's Mistake'

'Most of us come from lower middle class families,' writes a history schoolteacher who's been teaching since 2019.

Over 25,000 teaching and non-teaching recruits of the 2016 West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC) have lost their jobs after the Supreme Court ruled that the entire selection process was vitiated by fraud.

(Image altered by The Quint)

I was a history teacher for students of grades 9 and 10 at Kulti Government Colony Refugee Girls' High School in Ghatakpukur in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district. After a recent Supreme Court judgment on 3 April, I am suddenly jobless—and my livelihood and career are both at risk.

I was hired under the West Bengal School Service Commission (WBSSC), the advertisement and recruitment process of which started in 2016. While the exam was conducted for 24,640 posts of teaching and non-teaching staff, 25,753 candidates were issued appointment letters.

In its recent order, the Supreme Court declared that the entire selection process was vitiated by fraud, cancelling all the appointments, including mine.

"WBSSC acknowledges that 6,276 illegal appointments were made,” stated the judgment of the Supreme Court bench, led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna. My simple question is: Is this the fault of the remaining 19,477 candidates? Why should meritorious candidates suffer for the lapses on the part of the WBSSC?

I qualified for the teaching job on merit in a competition where around 23 lakh candidates had applied. It took years of preparation to clear the exams. How can all of that be thrown down the drain just because there were lapses by the WBSSC?

'Punish The Wrongdoers, Not Us!'

The Supreme Court bench called the recruitment process a "systemic failure." So, what’s being done about the system itself? Why are those responsible not being punished?

Instead, 19,477 legitimate recruits like us are being thrown out of our jobs, while the real culprits—those who manipulated the system—still hold their positions when they should be the ones losing their jobs and facing jail time.

The top court, in its judgment, also ordered a fresh recruitment drive to be completed within three months. Is this fair to people like us?

'Re-Exam Defies Logic'

How feasible is it for a candidate to retake an entrance exam for which they prepared a decade ago?

I started working as a history teacher in 2019, and after finding some financial stability through the job, I got married in 2021. Now, I have a one-and-a-half-year-old child. All these decisions in my life were taken only after getting the job. Can any of them be reversed?

Not just that — I even took a home loan based on my employment and booked a flat in Kolkata. Now, who is going to pay the EMIs? I’ve stopped receiving my salary from this month.

The court needs to understand the social strata and financial backgrounds of people like us who compete in these exams. Most of us, including myself, come from lower middle class families.

These recruitments decide our fate as well as the fate of our families. Dismissing our appointments is like erasing whatever little we were able to achieve in our lives through hard work and perseverance.

If 6,276 candidates were hired illegally, punish them—and punish the recruiters in the School Service Commission. But please, don’t punish me and the 19,476 others like me.

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