WBSSC Exam 2025: 11 percent of ‘eligible’ teachers did not apply for the SSC SLST exam, what will happen next?

WBSSC Exam 2025: The application process for the SSC exam ended at midnight on July 21. According to the information received so far, a total of 5 lakh 84 thousand candidates have filled the form. Among them, about 3 lakh 30 thousand candidates have applied for the ninth-tenth grade, and 2 lakh 54 thousand candidates have applied for the eleventh-twelfth grade.

Movement and Application

“No filling of job exam forms before the review petition” — with this demand, the ‘eligible’ teachers had marched to Bikash Bhavan, held sit-ins, and even went on hunger strikes. But now, the leaders associated with that movement have themselves applied to sit for the 2025 School Service Commission (SSC) examination. Agitators like Mehboob and Chinmoy have also filled out the exam forms.

89 percent of the ‘eligible’ teachers have applied. However, the remaining 11 percent of candidates did not apply.

Amit Ranjan Bhuiyan, a ‘qualified’ physical science teacher who lost his job, had alleged that he was lathi-charged by the police while protesting in front of the DI office in Kolkata. He was known as one of the main faces of this movement. Amit said, “We have not backed down from our demands. But the current situation has forced us to apply. We have endured everything from police batons to kicks.”

Court’s Order and Current Situation

The list of ‘eligible’ candidates published by the SSC mentioned the names of 15,403 people. Later, the SSC submitted documents of 1,801 ‘ineligible’ candidates to the court.

According to the information provided by the SSC, 13,700 people have filled the form. This means that 11 percent of the ‘eligible’ teachers did not participate in this new process. About 89 percent of ‘eligible’ candidates have participated.

However, these 15,303 ‘eligible’ teachers are still employed in schools. According to the Supreme Court’s order, they can teach in schools until December 31. Notably, on April 3, the Supreme Court canceled the panel of nearly 26,000 teachers and staff from 2016 due to allegations of recruitment corruption.

Mehboob Mondal, one of the faces of the movement, said, “We have all filled the form. Since the ‘ineligible’ are not being allowed to sit for the exam, we have taken a step forward. We have filled the form and will take the exam. We are looking towards the Supreme Court for the rest.”

The Picture in 2016

For the 2016 SLST exam, about 2 lakh 75 thousand candidates had applied. Among them, the number of applicants for the ninth-tenth grade was 1 lakh 35 thousand, and for the eleventh-twelfth grade, about 2 lakh 75 thousand had applied.