Protest in Bihar Against Result of Major Teacher Recruitment Drive, Allegations of Irregularities Emerge

Patna: Results of the biggest school teacher recruitment drive in Bihar by the Mahagathbandhan government is in trouble. It is being questioned by opposition leaders and hundreds of school teacher job aspirants who staged a protest on Wednesday in Patna against alleged irregularities in the teachers recruitment exercise (TRE) to recruit 170,000 school teachers in the state.

It was the first TRE conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC).

Sensing politics behind the opposition’s stand over the result and protest by unsuccessful teacher job aspirants, Atul Prasad, the chairman of the BPSC, which conducted TRE, announced to declare cut-off marks in all TRE papers soon.

Hours after protest by job aspirants outside the main gate of BPSC against alleged irregularities in the TRE, Prasad on Wednesday ruled out apprehension of foul play in the exam results of teacher recruitment.

Writing on social media platform X, Prasad said, “When we are dealing with such large numbers as in TRE, multi-layer filtering is needed to weed out undeserving candidates. This is what’s going on and that’s why all results are conditional. Any vacancy arising out of this filtering will be filled by one or more supplementary results. Very soon we will be declaring cut off marks in all TRE (“जब हम टीआरई जैसी बड़ी संख्याओं से निपट रहे हैं, तो अयोग्य लोगों को हटाने के लिए मल्टी लेयर फ़िल्टरिंग की आवश्यकता होती है। यही हो रहा है और इसीलिए सभी परिणाम सशर्त हैं। इस फ़िल्टरिंग से उत्पन्न होने वाली कोई भी रिक्ति एक या अधिक पूरक परिणामों से भरी जाएगी। बहुत जल्द हम सभी टीआरई पेपरों में कट ऑफ अंक घोषित करेंगे”।)”

According to reports in local Hindi dailies, a section of teaching job aspirants have expressed unhappiness soon after the results were out last week and threatened to protest against it alleging irregularities on a large scale. During their protest on Wednesday, they demanded a high-level probe into the allegations.

The BPSC started publishing the results of the TRE in a phased manner from October 17, after which Bihar’s education department announced that it will start the counselling for the BPSC teachers’ recruitment from October 18.

BPSC officials said that of 170,000 school vacancies, as many as 1,22,324 candidates qualified, leaving 48,137 seats vacant.

The vacant seats are likely to rise because nearly 45,000 teachers appointed are already employed as contractual teachers, locally known as ‘Niyojit Shikhshak’ and over 20,000 are said to be from outside Bihar. Interestingly, one of the successful TRE candidates is the daughter of a senior BJP leader of neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

In a bid to fulfil its promises ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Mahagathbandan government has started the process of recruiting 170,000 school teachers. The recruitment process is underway through the BPSC. The BPSC has already published the results of the teacher recruitment exam, with the remaining results expected in the coming days.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is set to hand out provisional appointment letters to over 25,000 successful candidates on November 2 after the completion of counselling.

Furthermore, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav recently announced plans to recruit over 100,000 more school teachers in the near future.

Kumar and Yadav have repeatedly claimed to provide more jobs to youths in the coming days.This is widely seen here as a big move to work on employment.

Opposition BJP and its allies, including HAM, and LJP(R), have demanded a probe into the TRE. "We will make a revelation soon about the grave irregularities in the recruitment,” leader of opposition Vijay Kumar Sinha.

Former chief minister and founder of Hindustani Awam Morcha (secular) (HAM) Jitan Ram Manjhi questioned the results of the TRE and described it as a big scam in which teaching jobs were given in exchange for money. ”We demand an inquiry into it,” Manjhi said.

Chirag Paswan of LJP(R) also alleged corruption and irregularities in the TRE and demanded a high-level probe into it.

The BPSC in June notified the appointment of 1.70 lakh school teachers and formally invited online applications from teacher aspirants for appointment from June 15 to July 12, which was later extended as well. Under the Bihar State School Teachers (appointment, transfer, disciplinary action and service condition) Rules, 2023, teachers are to be appointed under one standardised process and have status equivalent to state government employees with separate district cadres.

However, the government amended new recruitment rules by ending the domicile policy that has triggered protests by teaching job aspirants, who are likely to get support from 3.5 lakh contractual teachers.