The fate of more than 6,000 guest teachers hangs in the balance as the Uttarakhand High Court has tersely told the State Government to immediately release 90 per cent of the lecturer-Teacher (lT) exam results. The Government was dithering on the release of results as it would mean removal of the temporary guest teachers appointed last year.
The result of lT examination held last year was being released in phased manner prompting the court to order that 90 per cent of result should be declared without delay. The court has reserved 10 per cent of result as decision on grant of 10 per cent horizontal reservation for statehood activists is pending.
Interestingly, the State education minister, Mantri Prasad Naithani has publically stated that the guest teachers would not be removed.
When contacted the Secondary education Director, R K Kunwar said that the department has not received the copy of the court’s order yet. He said that result of 1,300 candidates was declared in first phase and added that the court’s order would be fulfilled.
It appears that the education department was deliberately going slow on the lT examination so that the guest teachers who were appointed in vacant posts are not removed as per the wish of state education minister. The Uttarakhand board of technical education released the recruitment advertisement for more than 3,000 pots of lTs in the government inter colleges of the state in the month of February 2014. After a long hiatus the examination was finally held in the month of March 2015.
The deliberate attempt to go slow on the examination was evident as the government virtually sat over the result of the examination so much so that HC had to intervene in January 2016 and order release of examination result on a plea of some aspirants.
Meanwhile the guest lecturers have formed a federation and are pressurizing the government so that their services are not terminated. The department had appointed 6,142 guest teachers last year on a salary of Rs15,000 per month. The appointment of these teachers is purely temporary and the contract clearly mentions that they can be removed at any point of time.
However, the association of guest teachers has demanded that since their work is satisfactory the government should not remove them. The spokesperson of the association of guest teacher, Harish Arya said that they respect the court orders but at the same time the government should ensure that the guest teachers are not removed.