The education department has given recommendation to the Government for removing the criteria of distance of school from nearest Railway station in the transfer policy of teachers. The department has also made some other recommendations to make minor alterations in the transfer policy to make it more practical.
These decisions were taken after a meeting of top officials of the department on Tuesday. The meeting was chaired by the Secretary School education, D Senthil Pandian. The department officers told Pandian that the gradation of the schools into different categories of accessible and inaccessible is being affected by incorporation of the criteria of distance from railway station.
The teacher organisations were demanding removal of this criterion as it was an impractical concept. It was also suggested that number of transfers in each category in the on request transfer should be fixed. This was necessitated as total seats available in on request category got exhausted only by cases of husband-wife teachers and the teachers suffering from chronic diseases could not be transferred though being eligible for transfers.
The officials said that some relaxations in the policy are needed to be made so that a problem in posting of teachers in the model schools is removed. It was also decided that necessary amendment in the policy should be made to give priority to the spouses of employees of non transferable jobs like secretariat services. The policy gives benefit to the spouses of armed forces personnel, in the meeting it was decided that similar benefit should be extended to the spouses of paramilitary forces personnel.
The education department officials suggested that there should not be a time constraint for transfers in the mutual category. In the meeting it was also decided to take suggestions from teachers’ organizations for making amendments in the transfer policy of teachers.
It is mention worthy that the transfer of teachers is one of the most contentious issues in the education department. The Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Harish Rawat used his discretionary powers to implement Uttarakhand school teacher first appointment, promotion transfer posting (fourth amendment) guidelines 2014, in the month of December, 2014. These guidelines are termed as transfer policy in popular parlance.