Police foil teachers’ plan to hold march

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, June 28

Working on contractual basis for the past 14 years, teachers recruited under the Alternative Inclusive Education (AIE) and Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) today convened a meeting at Children’s Park.

They had also planned to hold a protest march up to the District Administrative Complex.

However, as the teachers began to walk out of the park, the police personnel deployed at the protest site, closed the gate of the park to thwart their plan.

A deputation of the teachers was then taken to meet the Deputy Commissioner. During the meeting, the teachers submitted a memorandum of their demands.

Members of the Shaheed Kiranjit Kaur EGS-AIE-STR Teachers Union, Punjab, today raised slogans against the state government.

They said, “Since 2003, we have been working on contractual basis in government primary schools. After some of our union members laid down their lives, our salaries were increased in 2014. We are still getting Rs 5,000 per month.”

Gagan, a leader of the union, said they were demanding that the law of ‘equal work, equal pay’ be also applicable on the teachers recruited under such schemes.

She added that the jobs of the teachers should be regularised.

Threatening that they would launch state-wide protests, the teachers also demanded that after regularisation of their jobs, they be given charge of nursery classes, which might be introduced in government schools as it was being thought over by the Congress government.

They added that all these years, their job profiles had never been properly defined and now, they wanted charge of nursery classes so that the education level in government schools be raised.