Protesting teachers still atop water tank

Our Correspondent

Mohali, June 19

Heavy rain that lashed the town today failed to deter five unemployed teachers atop a water tank near Sohana from continuing their protest. They have been protesting over not being given jobs by the government.

Five teachers, who started the protest on June 14, have remained without food since then. Two of them are women. Some residents of Sector 70 provided refreshments to colleagues of the protesting teachers, who were sitting on the ground in support. While Parveen Kaur is from Fazilka district and Varinder Kaur from Nabha, the third protester, Harvinder Singh, is from Malerkotla, Satnam Singh is from Dasuya and Vijay Kumar from Nabha. Other unemployed teachers, who had come from various parts of Punjab in support of the protesting teachers, raised slogans and demanded that they should be given jobs by the government at the earliest.

Raj Pal Khanouri, senior vice-president of the Unemployed Teachers Union, Punjab, who had come from Sangrur to join the protesters, said the protesting teachers had cleared various eligibility tests but were still jobless. “If the government went in for fresh recruitments, they would not be able to get jobs as they would exceed the age limit by that time. The posts of teacher should be increased so that all teachers could get employment,” he said. He said the result of Class X examination of the Punjab School Education Board were poor this time because government schools were short of teachers.

Khanouri said the protesters had met the Education Minister, the Finance Minister and various MLAs in connection with their demands. After waiting for three months for a favourable response from the government, the unemployed teachers were compelled to resort to the present protest.