A swathe of rural Bengal is seething again over the appointments purportedly on the basis of the Teachers Eligibility Test. The distressing message of the observation of the Calcutta High Court is that corruption has been institutionalised over the years, and ever more so under a holier-than-thou dispensation. It is a measure of the scam that the Bench (coram: Arijit Banerjee, J) has virtually binned the appointments made as per the results of TET, 2015.

Aside from the logistical conundrum on the day of the exam — scandalised by the leak of question papers — a wholly arbitrary system of appointments was determined by the candidate’s proximity to the party in power… with little or no regard to one’s performance in TET, let alone pre-exam training. Primary education has been generally disastrous in West Bengal; the Right to Education Act has translated to precious little in terms of qualitative change.

It now comes about that TET has degenerated to a political qualifier, bereft of even a scintilla of academic connotation. In the absence of adequate teachers and the appalling teacher-student ratio, the child in search of learning is the worst sufferer as must be primary education in the wider canvas.

A multiplicity of universities can make the foundation weaker still. It is a grim tragedy for education that those appointed as teachers are essentially political appointees who lack the wherewithal to teach.

The change of education ministers — from Bratya Basu to Partha Chatterjee — has scarcely addressed the chaos that is almost wholly politically contrived. More accurately, the fiddle has been finetuned ever since primary teachers without the mandatory training were appointed by the CPI-M dispensation.

Confusion gets worse confounded with reports that appointments are being effected on “monetary considerations” — a euphemism for bribery. This has provoked the judge to observe that “this is a serious allegation”.

No less serious has been the violation of another certitude that the names of those recommended for appointment must be published. The public domain has rather conveniently been accorded the short shrift; those chosen in accord with the lights of the ruling party are being informed via SMS. An essential qualification for teachers in the primary segment has been denuded beyond measure.

Political affiliation ensures that untrained candidates — loyal to the establishment — are being accorded precedence over the trained and most particularly those who have cleared TET. It would be delusory on the part of the government to ignore the groundswell of opposition in rural Bengal over the education department’s handling of a basic test.

The siege of several District Primary School Councils is but a symptom of the overwhelming malaise.