Kolkata: On the day the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) prepared to release the SLST results for recruiting teachers for classes 9 and 10, two separate groups of job aspirants staged large-scale protests in the city, alleging biased marking, illegal allotment of grace marks, and delays in the recruitment process. The demonstrations highlighted ongoing unrest within the school education sector.

Thousands of fresh SSC aspirants for classes 11 and 12 marched from Sealdah to Esplanade, blocking the busy Dorina Crossing for nearly 40 minutes. Demonstrators breached multiple police barricades and clashed with personnel after authorities denied permission for their planned route to the Y-Channel and attempted to divert the march to Ramleela Maidan. Protesters refused to disperse and briefly squatted at the JL Nehru Road-SN Banerjee Road intersection before police physically removed several demonstrators to clear the road.

The protesting aspirants demanded the withdrawal of the 10 "experience" marks granted to previously appointed teachers whose selection panel was struck down by the court in connection with the school jobs scam. They also sought public release of all OMR answer sheets and the creation of one lakh additional teaching positions.

A section of aspirants alleged that the additional marks had unfairly disadvantaged new candidates. They argued that former teachers whose appointments were annulled should not receive grace marks, especially when many first-time candidates had scored full marks in the written examination. The provision of 10 extra marks has already been challenged in both the Supreme Court and Calcutta High Court.

In a separate demonstration, hundreds of candidates from the 2016 Upper Primary batch marched from Karunamoyee to Bikash Bhavan, the headquarters of the state Education Department. They demanded completion of their long-pending appointment process. Although the results were declared nearly a decade ago and a court had ordered recruitment of 14,052 candidates, the protesters said the appointments of 1,241 qualified aspirants remain on hold despite all formalities being completed.

The protesters also noted that counselling—the final step before appointment—has not been conducted, even though the Supreme Court upheld a directive setting November 20 as the deadline. Many candidates alleged that they were repeatedly redirected between SSC officials and the Education Department with no clarity on vacancies or timelines.

The back-to-back protests underscored deepening frustrations among teaching aspirants, who say they will continue their agitation until the disputed marking system is reviewed and long-pending appointments are addressed.