'Dont blame us for poor results'

Addressing a press meet, he said “the census will go on for a month. The authorities normally point at high school teachers for poor performance of the students in SSLC examination. If there is any poor results, then the authorities should be held responsible and not the teachers.”

Citing examples, he said in Moodushedde government high school, out of seven teacher, six have been roped in for census work. In Kenjar school, out of seven teachers, five have been deployed for census work. In Kinnikambala school, out of eight teachers, six have been deployed for census work. In such a scenario who will teach the SSLC students? he asked.

To urge the government to fulfill various demands of the assistant teachers, the teachers will stage a dharna in all the district headquarters on February 19 and will submit a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner.

He said that despite several rounds of talks and meetings, demands of the association were not met. Injustice had been done to high school teachers on several issues including promotion, transfer policies, pay scales, and remuneration paid for SSLC evaluation work.

“The revision in the remuneration is not on par with the PUC teachers. There is over 50 per cent difference,” he added.

Criticising the Government’s decision to hold counselling for recruiting headmasters directly, Manjunath said direct recruitment for the posts of headmasters violated the direction of Karnataka Administrative Tribunal.

The tribunal had directed that the high school assistant teachers should be promoted to fill the vacancies for the post of head masters.  

The other demands of the association include setting right pay-scale anomalies, dropping five per cent limit in effecting transfer and considering TGT teachers as high school teachers.

Manjunath also urged the government not to delay in paying salary to the aided and government school teachers in the state. Many a time, the teachers do not get salary for two months, thus violating the government rule that salary must be paid within fifth of every month.