Probably wilting under the pressure of the State Government’s threat of severe punitive action, the association of lecturers and lecturer Teachers (lTs), the Rajkeeya Shikshak Sangh (RSS) has retracted on its earlier declared plan of boycott of Uttarakhand board examination.  The government had evoked provisions of the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) in the education department under which a complete ban on strike and work boycott was enforced for six months. The board examinations are scheduled to start from March 3 and the threat of work boycott by the association of teachers was a cause of big worry for the officials of the Uttarakhand Vidhyalayi Shiksha Parishad (UVSP). Services of 15,000 teachers a day is required for conduction of board examination and lTs and lecturers are mainly appointed by the board as invigilators.

The President of RSS, Ram Singh Chauhan said that the association had postponed its work boycott call. “On Saturday we met the Director General (DG) of school education D Senthil Pandian and he assured us that all the demands of the teachers would be accepted. He asked a time of one month for fulfillment of our demands. On the assurance of DG we decided to postpone the work boycott till the board examination and their assessment,’’ he said.

It is learnt that the tough posturing of the government on the issue of teacher’s agitation forced the leaders of the teacher association to take back the boycott call. Most of the block units of the teachers too were opposed to the board examination call as they were of the view that this would project teachers in bad light.

The association of lecturers and lTs is demanding that the state government should bring in a transparent transfer act in the education department so that the harassment and favoritism in the name of transfers are stopped. The other demand of the RSS is that the process of long delayed promotions in the department should start with immediate effect and the government should implement Assured Career Progression (ACP) scheme for the teachers.

The association has upped its ante against the department’s policy of appointing Guest lecturers in the schools located accessible areas. The lecturers are also demanding that they should be given the benefit of three Earned leaves (Els).