Protest against termination of five teachers today

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, January 15

After the Director General School Education passed termination orders of five teachers here today, a large number of teachers associated with the Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha and the Sarkari Sikhya Bachao Manch decided to hold a state-level meeting in Ludhiana on January 16 to discuss the further course of action against the state government.

As per Jaswinder Sidhu of the Sarkari Sikhya Bachao Manch, the decision to hold the meeting has come up in the wake of increasing odds against teachers. Teachers from across the state will be the part of meeting irrespective of which teacher union or banner they belong to.

He said after working for more than 10-12 years in the Education Department, the services of the teachers had not been regularised yet. And if they were fighting for their right, they were being terminated. Meanwhile, as per information received from sources, in the meeting scheduled for tomorrow, the Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha and the Sarkari Sikhya Bachao Manch is expected to shake hands and come up with a single united teacher front that would fight for the justice of all teachers, whether teaching, non-teaching or contractual employees.

The morcha and manch leaders would frame further strategies against the government and intensify their protests of regularisation on full pay-scale.

Members of Sukhwinder Chahal of the Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha said: “We will fight for the rights of the teachers dismissed by the department. In the meeting we will discuss our next step and make sure that the Education Department withdraws its termination orders”.

SSA, district pesident Sonali, said, “The Education Department is trying to threaten the teachers by issuing termination letters. This is department’s new tactic of creating fear in the minds of teachers, so that we stop protesting. But no such move of the government would stop us from fighting.”