Teachers protest for better salary, transfer

Members of the Primary Teachers’ Association went on mass casual leave and staged a protest at Nehru Maidan on Tuesday, urging the government to fulfil their demands.

The teachers took out a protest march from Ambedkar Circle to Nehru Maidan.

High School Associate Teachers’ Association president Stany Tauro, addressing the teachers, said that, if the demands were not met, they would boycott the Teachers’ Day programmes and organise a Vidhana Soudha Chalo rally.

K M K Manjanady, president of the Aided School Teachers’ Association, accused the government of not fulfilling their promises. “The government must consider graduation of teachers, to give them salary based on qualification. No transfer of teachers has taken place in the last three years. The government should complete the transfer process in haste to help teachers,” he demanded.

The old pension scheme should be introduced by withdrawing the New Pension Scheme. The other demands are that kindergarten should be started in all government schools in the state. The government should set right the loopholes in considering additional teachers in a school. Also, the headmaster and the physical education teacher should not be considered while considering the student-teachers ratio, for additional teachers, the teachers listed out.

In Udupi

Members of the Udupi district unit of the Primary School Teachers’ Association organised a rally in Manipal in protest against the changes in Cadre and Recruitment Rules 2017, which had limited the teachers appointed before 2014 to teach only for Classes from 1 to 5.

The teachers boycotted the classes on Tuesday. The agitators demanded that they be called graduated primary teachers, on par with other primary teachers who were graduates while joining the service. The Association president Ravindra Heggade said that the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission should be implemented for primary school teachers.

About 2,500 primary school teachers from 600 government primary schools did not conduct classes in protest against the state government’s apathy towards them. A memorandum was submitted to the Deputy Director of Public Instruction Sheshashayana.