Anganwadi workers’ massive protest for teaching jobs
Aakanksha N Bhardwaj
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, November 15
The showers did not deter the anganwadi workers who came out in larger numbers to participate in their Jail Bharo Andolan here today. They gathered at the district administration complex seeking their arrest. More than 2,500 workers first gathered at the Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall and then moved towards the district administration office.
They raised slogans against the state government and the Education Department, demanding jobs to teach students aged between three to five years.
The police detained 23 anganwadi workers and freed them after an hour. “We all wanted to get arrested, but they took only 23 of us,” said Dharamjit Kaur, chairperson of the Anganwadi Mulazam Union. They would hold a meeting with the Education Secretary on November 17 and chalk out further action plan in case no conclusion is reached, she said.
The state government had in September this year approved a proposal to start enrolling children more than three-year-old in pre-primary classes at government schools. The classes have started recently.
According to the protesters, the state government was going to snatch their jobs.
Harjit Kaur, state president of the Anganwadi Mulazim Union, said, “Which job should we do now as the classes have started in the government schools? We run centres in which children up to the age of five years are admitted. Now that the government has planned to start classes for them in the government schools, we fear for our jobs.”
Recently, Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal in a video message stated that the anganwadi workers should not worry about their jobs as they would not be ousted from their work. To this, the workers said they were not government employees that they would be shifted to another department. “We work under a particular scheme and we know our job. If students are taken away from us, we will be left with no work,” they said.
The vice-president of the union, Krishna Kumari, had addressed anganwadi workers and helpers and had circulated a voice message on the social networking sites, stating that if any teacher forcibly took away a student from their centre, workers would move the High Court. “No one will allow any schoolteacher to give the students studying in anganwadi centres until November 14,” the voice note said.
