Clear SSC and choose your school

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, July 18, 2007
FROM NOW on, an aspiring teacher can almost pick and choose the school he will like to join. To help them make the right choice, the School Service Commission (SSC) will hold counselling session for successful candidates. The practice so far has been that candidates who cleared the written test and interview were offered jobs at schools specified by the SSC.
SSC chairman Ranajit Basu said they were trying to introduce the new system from this year. “We have principally agreed to hold counselling sessions from this year. The only difference will be instead of we offering schools to the candidates, they we will have the liberty to choose the school,” Basu said.
The SSC will follow the counselling pattern adopted by the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE). According to the new system, the topper will have the liberty to pick his school and the option will narrow down for candidates down the ladder.
“We want to make the process as transparent as possible and will ensure that candidates know which school has how many vacancies and how the seats are getting filled up,” said Basu.
Explaining the reason behind the move, Basu said, “Many candidates do not accept the job offer because they do not get the school of their desire. In many cases candidates leave after joining the service because the location of the school and create a vacancy which cannot be filled up before another year. To do away with such problems we will be asking the candidates to chose their schools,” said Basu. Many schools do not get teachers for SC, ST and other reserved posts the counseling session may solve that problem on the spot if the authorities decided to convert some reserved posts in certain subjects into general category where candidates are not available and instead convert some general posts to reserved category in other subjects to maintain a balance.
This year the candidates have given their district preference if selected for the job. But unlike WBJEE the SSC will not hold centralized counseling. “We are yet to work out on the modalities of whether to hold district wise counseling or organize counseling in our five regional offices across the state. However the candidates will be offered options during the counseling according to their choice of district,” said Basu.
This year three lakh sixty thousand students took SSC exam out of which 24571 candidates will be offered teaching positions in the secondary and higher secondary schools across he state. The written test and the interview session is already over and the final merit list of about 49,000 students will be declared by the first week of August after which they will be called for counseling and offered teaching position in the schools of their choice.
mou.hindustantimes@yahoo.com