Bengal assembly passes NCTE recruitment norms for teachers

The West Bengal assembly today passed the recruitment of teachers under National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) norms in the primary, secondary and higher secondary standards.
Tabling the The West Bengal Schools (Control and Expenditure) (Amendment) Bill 2016 in the house, Higher Education minister Partha Chatterjee said a dozen cases had been filed in the Calcutta High Court against the government for not adhering to the NCTE norms while recruiting school teachers.
He said that a total of 72,000 vacanies needed to be filled in teachers' posts across the state.
This Bill had been tabled to safeguard the future of the applicants who had appeared for the tests and interviews, Chatterjee said.

Under the new norms, he said that eligibility for applying for classes six to eight was graduates with 50 per cent, classes nine to ten graduates/PGs with 50 per cent, for classes 11 and 12 PG with 50 per cent.
He said that the government had written to NCTE about the nomenclature of class five whether it fell within the primary or upper-primary section.
The CPI(M) and Congress members opposed the Bill and sought a division of votes.