Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, December 8
On a call of the Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha, thousands of teachers from across the state held a state-level rally at Jalandhar Cantt on Wednesday following which they also held a protest march to the residence of Education Minister Pargat Singh.
Addressing the crowds on the occasion, the gathered teachers said the Education Minister has been adopting a dilly-dallying approach on various key issues of teachers, including promotions, transfers, regularisation of contractual teachers, new appointments, computer teachers’ shifting to the education department, imposition of department exam on promoted teachers and victimisation of teachers.
Other issues and demands highlighted by protesting teachers included regularisation of all contractual teachers and non teaching, ODL teachers, meritorious and Adarsh School teachers without any condition; restoration of old pension scheme; implementation of all pending promotions of all cadres as per 75 per cent quota; dismissal of victimisation and police cases during protests; implementation of all transfers as per changed policy; provision of opportunity to teachers for transfer who lived away from their permanent residences; withdrawal of decision to implement central scale on new employees; ensuring pay parity among various sections of teachers; dismissal of the 15-1-2015 notification on basic pay and appointment; implementation of previous services benefits and Punjab pay scales on 180 ETT TET-Pass teachers; ensuring due appointments of primary and pre-primary teachers; release of advertisements and appointment letters on PTI, DPE, Art and Craft etc. subjects; restoration of border area/handicapped among other allowances; return of forcefully shifted PTIs to parent schools; withdrawal of decision of closure of 800 primary schools; withdrawal of decision of removal of head teachers’ posts from various schools among others.
Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha leaders, Balkar Singh Valtoha, Vikram Dev Singh, Sukhwinder Singh Chahal, Harjit Singh Basota, Baaz Singh Khehra, Jaswinder Aulakh, Harvinder Bilga, Baljit Salana, Sukhraj Singh Kahlon and Sukhjinder Harika among others said the protest was being held in opposition to the educations minister’s inability to resolve some key issues of teachers in the state and for the state education’s steadily heading towards privatisation in keeping with the pro-privatisation Central Education Policy-2020.
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