The education department has initiated a process of changes in the transfer policy of teachers. The department has also invited various associations of teachers for suggestions regarding the policy.
The education director RK Kunwar has convened a meeting of the office bearers of different teachers’ organisations on October 9. The meeting was earlier scheduled on September 15 but it now has been postponed.
In the meeting the President, Vice President and General Secretaries of the Rajkeeya Shikshak Sangh, the Junior High School Shikshak Sangh and Prathemik Shikshak Sangh would participate in the meet. These organisations are taking feedback and suggestions of the teachers on the new transfer policy.
The transfer policy is one of the most contentious issues for thousands of teachers of Government schools of the State. The transfer policy for teachers was first of all promulgated by the BJP Government when Major General Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri was the Chief Minister. When the Congress Government came to power it abolished this policy later Harish Rawat brought in a new policy for transfer of teachers.
The teaching community however had many objections with this policy. Wary of negative reactions from the teachers, the new Education Minister Arvind Pandey imposed a moratorium on all transfers in this academic year.
The transfer policy of teachers is based on the categorisation of the schools into accessible (Sugam) and hard to accessible (Durgam). The schools are then further subdivided into sub categories.
The teachers according to the period they are posted in either Sugam or Durgam categories are given scores. These scores are used in their transfers to schools.
The teacher organisations are at logger heads with the department on the criteria used to differentiate the schools into different categories. At present, there are eleven major and 84 minor criteria on which categorisation of the schools into Sugam or Durgam categories are done.
It is learnt that the education department has decided to reduce the number of criteria. According to Sources, the department has now decided to reduce the number of major criteria to seven. Similarly, the number of minor criteria too would be reduced to 35. The crieteria like elevation from the mean sea level and distance from nearest railways station would now be dispensed with and the categorisation would be based on factors like distance from district headquarter, distance from the road, distance of bank and health centre from the school and population density around the school.