School teachers in Punjab continue stir, meet education minister

Chandigarh: Temporary teachers demanding regularisation of jobs and a raise in salary on Thursday continued with their protest outside the education board building in Mohali even as they held meetings with minister Vijay Inder Singla and a secretary-level officer over their issues.

During the meeting with Education minister Singla, representatives of the protesting teachers demanded regularisation of their jobs and an increase in their salary to Rs 40,000 per month. Under the banner of the Temporary Teachers' Union, more than 500 teachers on Wednesday had laid siege to the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) building to press the Congress-led state government to accept their demands.

They demanded that 13,000 temporary teachers who had been teaching for the last several years in the state should be regularised without any condition. Protesting teachers rued that they were getting just Rs 6,000 while slamming Chief Minister Amarinder Singh for not addressing their issues in the past four-and-half years.

Protesting teacher Jujhar Singh said during the meetings with the education minister and the secretary, their representatives demanded that the government should give priority to them in appointments to 8,393 posts of Nursery Teachers' Training (NTT), which have been advertised by the state government.

Relaxation in selection criteria

Teachers are demanding relaxation in criteria, including more marks for experience for the selection of candidates, said Singh. He further said after the meeting with the education secretary, it was decided to suspend the exam for NTT posts, which was scheduled for June 27.

Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party said the state government should accept the demands of the protesting teachers. AAP's state youth wing chief and MLA Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer and co-president Anmol Gagan Mann said "atrocities" are now being "perpetrated" as it was during the SAD-BJP government. Former Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal also slammed the state government over the teachers' issue.

"A state is doomed when its educators are beaten up for demanding their rights. Is it not shameful that the Punjab govt, instead of fulfilling its promises made to teachers, is slapping charges on them? @capt_amarinder you have completely lost the moral right to govern Punjab,” she said in a tweet.

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