PTI teachers threaten to intensify agitation

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, April 17

Members of the Unemployed 849 PTI Teachers Union today threatened to intensify their stir against the state government for not fulfilling their long-pending demands.

They made the announcement during a press briefing held in the city today. Later, they convened a state-level rally at the Teachers’ Home during which they discussed their future plan of action.

“The Punjab government, which claims that education in government schools is its priority, is not serious about filling the posts lying vacant in the schools across the state. The government has enough money to fund the foreign trips of its ministers and buy them luxury vehicles but when it comes to paying salaries to its own employees on time, the government points to its empty coffers,” said the state president of the union, Manjit Singh Chauke.

The union members threatened that now their fight for recruitment had become a matter of do or die. They will go to any extent to make the government take note of their demands, they added.

Accusing the government of entangling the procedure of recruitment of unemployed PTI teachers in legal battles and delaying it for no reason, Chauke explained that it had been almost 10 years since the state government announced 849 posts for PTI teachers in government schools.

He said given the eligibility criteria for these 849 posts, many unemployed teachers with higher qualifications were disallowed from applying for these posts.

“After these teachers approached the High Court over the erroneous eligibility criteria, the court ruled in favour of the candidates who were not considered for recruitment earlier. Despite the fact that the court ordered the state government to rectify the eligibility criteria and include those candidates as well who were earlier left out, the state government is yet to finish the recruitment procedure. Since all these years, it has been delaying the submission of an affidavit in the court,” Chauke said.

Due to the unnecessary delay in the completion of the recruitment procedure, many well-qualified teachers are awaiting employment, he said.

“The unemployed teachers include those who hold MPEd, M Phil and PhD degrees. Meanwhile, over the past 10 years, many teachers have even crossed the outer age limit for participating in the recruitment procedure,” Chauke added.