Teachers ask for reforms in NEP 2020, School of Eminence scheme
Amritsar, April 15
The Democratic Teachers Front Punjab’s state committee, comprising teachers from Amritsar, passed a resolution against the implementation of NEP 2020 and the selective admission to Schools of Eminence, calling them anti-education decisions. The delegation met with MLA Amritsar North Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh to submit a letter and requested him to forward it to CM Punjab Bhagwant Mann, urging him to address the long-pending issues of teacher regularization to expect full cooperation from teachers.
“Our teams in each district have submitted letters of demands to respective MLAs, and we also met Cabinet Minister Local Government Dr Inderbir Singh Nijjar and Amritsar North MLA Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh to discuss our demands. We have raised our doubts regarding the new education policy and the School of Eminence,” said Ashwani Awasthi, district unit head of DTF.
Awasthi added that since 2011, ODL teachers working in the school education department, earning a salary of only 10,300, have been working diligently and should be immediately regularised by the government. “The NEP 2020 will encourage the privatisation of education, making it more costly. The state government’s School of Eminence is an attempt to make education exclusive rather than inclusive. The selective, entrance-based admissions to SOE, that were previously being run as smart schools from Classes VI to XII, will only force students left out to look for other schools. Before coming up with the SOE scheme, the opinion of educationists, teachers, and students were not taken into consideration,” he said.
The delegation also demanded that the state follow its own education policy, considering the socio-cultural and linguistic requirements of the state. They also demanded the reform of the Punjab State Sixth Pay Commission, the immediate release of pending Dearly Allowance, release of remaining installments and balances, restoration of old pension under the Pension Act of 1972, retrenchment of all cadres of teachers, including the loss of rural allowance, border allowance, merging the computer teachers in the department by applying valid pay scale, and sending 228 PTI teachers back to parent schools.
