Agitated over the indifferent attitude of the State Government, thousands of guest teachers of the State are planning to restart their agitation. These teachers are blaming the Government for not taking up their case properly in Uttarakhand High Court (HC). The guest teachers are peeved over the fact that the State Government counsel failed to appear on September 20 in HC when their case came up for hearing.
The president of the association of guest teachers of Uttarakhand Vivek Yadav said that the guest teachers are shocked over the apathetic attitude of the State Government. He said that office bearers of the association would meet on Saturday to discuss their future course of action. He said that thousands of guest teachers are prepared to hit the path of agitation.
The guest teachers were appointed for a period of nine months or end of the academic session on purely contractual basis in the year 2015. When their contract was terminated in March 2016 they started a massive agitation which forced the then Congress Government to reinstate their services. The order was, however, challenged in the court which cancelled their reinstatement. The matter then went to a bench of HC which recently asked the State Government to initiate a proper recruitment process to fill vacant posts of teachers in the Government schools. The court meanwhile granted temporary relief to the guest teachers working on posts of lTs and allowed them to work till March 2018. Following the order, the State Government redeployed about 1,600 guest teachers. However, the left- out guest teachers are putting pressure on the State Government to reinstate their services also.
These teachers claim that the academic level in the Government schools has increased due to services of the guest teachers. They claim that in the election manifesto, the BJP had assured to go for inclusion of the guest teachers in the education department if elected to power and in the Governor’s address also at the start of Vidhan Sabha session, the same assurance was reaffirmed.