PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE | Dehradun
Venting anger against the State government’s alleged apathy towards their longstanding 34-point demand, Rajkiya Shikshak Sangh (RSS), the powerful association of government school lecturers has threatened to gherao the chief minister’s residence and the secretariat in September. Moreover, the RSS functionaries said that they would perform Tarpan in Haridwar as a form of protest against the direct recruitment of the government school principals.
While addressing a media conference here on Wednesday, RSS president Ram Singh Chauhan slammed the State government for demonstrating their prejudice towards teachers. “For the past two years, my organisation has been demanding teachers’ promotion and cancellation of the direct recruitment examination for the principals. We have also served them a 34-point charter of demands. But the State government seems to be sleeping over it. We really doubt whether they are serious at all regarding the interests of teachers and students,” he said.
To buttress his point, he said that though the government claims it provides three promotions to a teacher in his or her teaching career, many educators do not receive even a single promotion in 30 to 35 years. “Besides, the teachers are being burdened with numerous tasks beyond their teaching responsibilities such as census-related works and election duties. Yet, they are at the receiving end of the government’s indifference towards their just demands,” he added.
The organisation’s general secretary Ramesh Chandra Panyuli articulated their grievances, too, during the media conference. “RSS has engaged in multiple discussions at various levels of the government and administration over the past two years, yet these have yielded no tangible results,” he said.
Throwing a challenge to the State government, the RSS general secretary said that from now onwards, they would only focus on teaching and refrain from participating in any activities other than teaching. “Besides, all in-charge principals will not discharge additional activities. They will confine themselves to the task of teaching only in their respective schools,” he said.
The RSS has made it clear that they would not buckle under the government pressure of withdrawing litigations. Notably, the State government keeps repeatedly asserting that they would clear their pending promotions once they withdraw cases from courts.
However, the teachers argued that it is their constitutional right to challenge the irregularities committed by the department which have remained unaddressed despite several letters written. “We have moved the court under compulsion. If the government admits and corrects its mistakes promotions will follow automatically. Besides, the government may approach the court for guidance on promotions as has been done in the past,” an RSS functionary said.
