Bihar: Teachers hold protests, demand govt employee status

PATNA: Teachers of state-run schools in Bihar on Saturday staged demonstrations in front of block offices across districts, demanding government employee status for all contractual educators who have been working for several years in such educational institutes. They have also been demanding immediate withdrawal of all departmental actions, including suspension, recently initiated against several teachers by the state education department.

Protesting teachers warned of intensifying the agitation if their demands were not accepted. "Almost all teachers' associations in the state had unanimously decided to protest against the department's recent decisions. Teachers of government schools in the state staged dharnas outside their respective block offices today. They also burnt effigies of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav," TET Primary Teachers' Association convener Raju Singh told PTI. The agitators raised slogans, "demanding government employee status to all contractual teachers and immediate withdrawal of departmental actions”, he said.

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Singh claimed that the state education department initiated action against those teachers who raised their voices against the recent decisions, including the suspension of educators. The education department recently came out with a slew of stringent measures to infuse diligence among the teachers and officials and improve the academic atmosphere in government-run schools in the state. “We also demand that the department should immediately stop engaging school teachers in other governmental activities, including election-related work.

Teachers have already started offering their resignations in those areas where they are being engaged in non-teaching activities," Singh said. The government had recently directed district magistrates across the state not to engage school teachers and employees of the state education department for the document verification work of candidates who appeared for the ‘school teachers recruitment (2023) examination. The test was recently conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC).