Hundreds of agitating members of the Bachelor of Education and Teachers Eligibility Test-qualified Unemployed Federation were arrested by the police when they tried to march towards the State secretariat on Monday.
In support of their demand for job in Primary Teacher cadre of the State Government these members of the Federation gathered at the Gandhi Park ans were heading to the secretariat.
Minor scuffle between the agitators and the police occurred when the proposed march was stopped. Chaos prevailed at the site of arrest as police had to arrange some private vehicle to transport the arrested members of the Federation. The police took the arrested candidates — including women —to Race Course area.
The General Secretary of Federation Amit Kashyap told The Pioneer that the police manhandled the agitators. The agitation would continue till the State Government clears all hurdles in their recruitment process. He said that the federation only demands that appointments in the stalled recruitment process should be given in the month of July only.
The federation is on a path of agitation since January 5 this year; its only demand is that the State Government should immediately fill the large number of vacant posts of primary teachers in the Government schools of the state. The agitation of the federation was prompted by the recent decision of the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) in which it clearly directed that the posts of the primary teachers should be filled only by the Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed) qualified candidates. There are more than 25000 B.Ed./TET qualified youths in the state and the directive of the NCTE meant marring their job prospects.
The protracted agitation of the Federation yielded result as the education department initiated recruitment process for 1891 posts of primary teachers. The department later added 96, 800 and 389 more posts under backlog quota in this recruitment drive. The recruitment process however received a jolt when Uttarakhand High Court quashed the recruitment advertisement of 1891 posts of primary teacher on the ground that the process of recruitment is not as per the guidelines laid down in the Uttarakhand Primary Teacher Service Rules 2012- amended 2013. The B.Ed/ TET qualified candidates blame the state government for the inept handling of the case in HC and claim that the above mentioned rule is not applicable on them.