The State president of the federation of Bachelor of Education (BEd)/Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) qualified unemployed youths, Manveer Rawat, who has been on a hunger-strike for the last six days has threatened to give up water as well if the department fails to increase the number of posts in the ongoing process of recruitment of primary teachers.
Rawat told The Pioneer that seven members of the federation are sitting on a fast unto death but instead of solving the problem of unemployed both the department officials and government are looking the other way. He said that he would stop taking water from Wednesday if the department fails to heed to the demand of the federation. Rawat categorically stated that the hunger strike would be called off only and only when the number of seats in the recruitment drive is raised to 3878. He said that many more members of the federation including many women are eager to join the hunger strike.
The department had released a recruitment advertisement for 653 posts of primary teachers in last month but later bowing to the pressure of the agitating federation the number of posts was increased to 1200 recently. However the agitated members of federation are not satisfied with the increase and are demanding that the government should further increase the number of vacancies. The members sitting on hunger strike are Manveer Rawat, Sunita Tomar, Bhagwan Singh, Sunil Namdev, Ramnaresh, Ram Kumar and Amarnath Singh.
The number of B.Ed. and TET level I qualified candidates in the state is more than 30000. These candidates would be rendered not eligible for being employed as primary teachers after March 31 as the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) has mandated that the only Diploma in Elementary Education (D El Ed) qualified candidates would be eligible to teach in the primary schools after March 31, 2016. The anxiety of these candidates can be understood as the posts of the primary teachers constitute a major share of the total job opportunities of teachers and after the aforesaid date only D El Ed qualified candidates would be able to become primary teachers. The NCTE had asked the state government to implement the compulsion of D.El.Ed. in March 2014 itself but on the plea of state government that it does not have sufficient number of diploma candidates, the apex body granted a reprieve of two years, the term of which is ending now.