3 days Ago
Pune: Primary teachers of local self-govt schools are expected to go on unpaid leave from Sept 25 to protest against the state over problems including unavailability of school uniforms in many rural areas three months after reopening of schools, shortage of textbooks, difficulties caused by integrated textbooks and the incomprehensible decision on classification of educational and non-educational work. The stir will likely disrupt school routine. Teachers said the issues have been building up over the last few months.
The Maharashtra State Primary Teachers' Committee has called for the protest. It said that 1.5 lakh primary school teachers would tie black ribbons in protest from Tuesday.
This would exit school WhatsApp groups formed to coordinate govt orders and notifications. On Sept 25, teachers from all districts were expected to reach the offices of their respective district collectorates and protest outside the premises. On Sept 9, the committee had submitted a letter to the state education department enlisting all their demands and had hinted at the protest.
President of the teachers' committee Vijay Kombe said, "We have the support of all local self-govt schools in Maharashtra. Over 1.5 lakh teachers will participate in the protest, which will be held in three phases.
We will not step back unless the govt accepts our demands." He further said the policies regarding local self-govt primary schools, the education provided there and its students and teachers are painful and unsettling. "Pending problems have been ignored and the new decisions are irrational, leading to widespread anger among teachers.
Teachers said there will be no choice but to intensify protests if their demands are not met immediately," Kombe added. Their prime demands are to revoke the govt decision of Sept 5 to appoint retired teachers and DEd and BEd qualified candidates on a contractual basis in schools with 20 or fewer students. They said it is incorrect and undermines provisions of the Right to Education Act .
It also adversely affects quality of education of children from poor, marginalised and farmers' communities. The second is retract staffing approval decision of March 15. The decision is inconsistent with the criteria in Sections 19 and 25 of the Right to Education Act.
It ignores the need for more teaching positions to ensure quality of education and reduces the number of posts of teachers. The demand for revocation of the decision is also because it is the basis for the Sept 5 decision. The third demand is to cancel enrolment approval based on Aadhaar card validity.
Govt's decision to validate and link Aadhaar cards for enrolment verification is inconsistent with the actual situation. There are issues with Aadhaar cards for nomadic tribes and migrant families. Even after validation, Aadhaar cards of the same student may often not appear valid due to spelling errors or other reasons.
Enrolment verification should be done through actual records and attendance monitoring systems. Moreover, they want that govt decision on classification of academic and non-academic work be amended. They demanded to cancel classification of academic and non-academic work in the govt decision dated Aug 23, under appendix A (academic work), item number 10 — working as chairman/secretary on various school-level committees, item number 3 — conducting surveys of newly literate individuals and item number 4 — collecting essential information for schemes from govt and local self-govt bodies online/offline.
The fifth demand is that teachers should not be made to do regular election-related tasks beyond what is essential and appointment as booth level officers should clearly be prohibited. Necessary changes should be made in consultation with primary teachers' organisations. A further demand is to change distribution system of student uniform and textbook schemes.
Over 75% of state schools have not yet received uniforms for students for academic year 2024-25. Wherever received, fabric of uniforms is of poor quality and sizes incorrect since the supplier did not take actual measurements. Uniform subsidy should be increased from next AY on lines of the earlier method.
At present, students should immediately receive uniforms of correct size and good quality. The seventh demand is that many schools do not have required number of textbooks affecting education even though it is three months since the start of the current AY. These should be provided immediately.
Subject-wise separate books should be given, as before, instead of integrated textbooks. Practice books for each subject should be provided free. The last demand is prompt resolution of teachers' financial and service-related demands: The three-tier payscale for primary teachers is outdated.
Primary teachers in Maharashtra receive lower salaries and other allowances as compared to their counterparts in central govt service. The Bakshi Committee, formed for the Seventh Pay Commission, has recommended an assured career progression scheme for teachers with 10-20-30 years of service. Since the govt has accepted the Bakshi Committee's recommendations, it should be implemented in the state.
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