Edu dept, BPSC engage in spat over doc verification

PATNA: After the recent tussle with the Raj Bhawan, the state education department has entered into yet another spat with the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) over engaging of teachers in verification of documents for the teacher aspirants.
The education department had earlier written a letter to the BPSC secretary and asked not to engage school teachers in the verification of candidates, who appeared in the state level teachers’ recruitment examination recently, conducted by the BPSC.In the letter, the education department pointed out that teachers’ involvement in verification work is disturbing academic activities in schools. “The teachers and officials of the department cannot be engaged in the verification of documents,” the department said, and instructed the DMs not to depute them for verification work. It also cautioned the commission not to deviate from the set guidelines and misuse its autonomy.
In a response to this letter, BPSC chairman Atul Prasad tweeted: “The government itself first appoints its officers and later makes changes. We are not concerned with this. But those elements who tried to cancel our teacher appointment document verification on this pretext should try harder.”
Later, BPSC secretary Ravi Bhushan also wrote a letter to the director of secondary education, directing him not to write such letters in future. He observed that the verification of documents is an internal process of the BPSC and, hence, questioning the propriety of the commission’s internal process or interfering in it in any way is unconstitutional, inappropriate and unacceptable. “It is surprising that knowing everything well, the education department is expecting BPSC’s recommendation on the teachers’ selection without the verification of documents,” the letter said.
Again, in reply to the BPSC’s letter, the education department has raised a question mark on the BPSC’s autonomy. The commission cannot take any irrational and illogical decision in the name of autonomy. It observed that if the BPSC wanted to do something beyond the well set norms; it should be discussed by all the stakeholders in a meeting.