Despite the fact that panchayat polls are approaching fast, the BJD Government continues to be harsh to a vast section of teachers working in schools and colleges in rural and semi-urban belt by ignoring their demand for service regularisation. This, even as the Government has declared to implement the 7th Pay Commission salary for its employees.
As per sources, about 50,000 employees in various Block Grant (BG) educational institutions in the State are demanding grant-in-aid (GIA) that would regularise their job. Similarly, hundreds others are also working as teachers under various curious names. The mass of irregular teachers has been continuing its agitation for long years and is at the end of its tether, but to no avail. The Government is hell-bent upon running its education system with such massive disgruntled manpower.
The whole State is not in dark any longer with regard to the plight of these teachers, who are catering to need of wards whose parents are mostly poor, like daily labourers and farmers. Frequent agitation and shutdown of schools and colleges often adversely affect the studies of the students reading in them, but neither the Government wants to change the situation for the better, nor are the teachers hopeless.
The high school teachers had held a longest ever cease work agitation by shutting down their institutions for over a month. The college teachers under 662 and 488 colleges had boycotted the +2 evaluation this year. later, the Government under pressure had declared to abolish Block Grant and implement GIA. But several months later, it stuck to its guns and just hiked the Block Grant dealing a rude shock to the agitating teachers.
Now, the teachers have decided to boycott the panchayat polls in February. Besides, they may also resort to their old planks like boycotting examination duty and later evaluation works which come in close succession between March and May.
The BJD MlAs and leaders are on a Jan Samark Yatra these days. They would certainly read the nerve of the downcast teaching community in villages