Top education officials left on their own: West Bengal minister

Souvik Bhattacharya, former vice- chancellor of Jadavpur University, quit on his own as did a few others, while it was the West Bengal government's prerogative to appoint the right administrators, a minister said.

Replying to a supplementary during question hour, Higher Education minister Bratya Basu told the Assembly that some top administrative officials in education, could have been removed, but some also left on their own.

Stating that Bhattacharya had discussed with him his wish to leave Jadavpur University and return to his parent institute, Basu said that there was no question of removing him.

A question was raised in the House on the resignations of Sugata Marjit former chairman West Bengal Council of Higher Education, Chaitali Dutta former president, West Bengal Secondary Education, Muktinath Chattopadhyay former president, West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education and Chittaranjan Mandal former chairman, School Service Commission.

Denying that some teachers who joined Presidency University recently, were forced to leave, he said that they had joined with the expectation that their packages would be at par with central universities and quit for better prospects.

He said that it was the state government's prerogative to appoint the right administrators to run the education department properly. Replying to another question, Basu, who is also in charge of the School Education department, said that 27,207 teachers for secondary and higher secondary schools were appointed in 2013-14.

To a supplementary, the minister said that 5,708 vacancies existed in secondary schools and 3,394 in higher secondary schools.

He said that Presidency University had 159 teachers against 318 posts, Sidhu Kanu University in Bankura had 64 teachers against 83 posts, Gour Banga University had 57 against 96 posts, and Barasat State University had 92 teachers against 161 posts.

PTI

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