Fill 30,000 vacant posts of teacher, demands union

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, January 17

Members of the TET-Qualified Unemployed ETT and BEd Teachers’ Union staged a protest and burnt copies of teachers’ recruitment notification here at Fauji Chowk on Friday. The protesters raised slogans against the government and threatened to intensify their stir in the coming days. While addressing the gathering of protesters at Teachers’ Home, the representatives of the union stated the state government must revoke its decision for recruitment of 2,682 teachers.

Yudhjit Singh, president of the union, said, “The union members have been sitting on an indefinite dharna from September 2019 at education minister’s district Sangrur. In the Cabinet meeting held on January 14, the government sanctioned 2,182 posts of BEd teacher and 500 posts of ETT teacher. We have vehemently opposed the decision and stated that as many as 15,000 posts of BEd and 12,000 posts of ETT teacher must be sanctioned. ”

Singh added, “There are approximately 30,000 posts of teachers lying vacant in the state while more than 65,000 teachers have been sitting unemployed even after clearing eligibility exams.”

The union members said that they would take a ‘surprise action’ to lodge their protest against the Education Minister on January 26. The protesters demanded that as many as 27,000 posts of teachers must be sanctioned in the state.

Yudhjit said, “Eligible candidates have been crossing the fixed aged criteria for jobs so we demand from the state government that the age limit must be extended from 37 years to 42 years. For the selection the criterion of 55 per cent marks in graduation have coerced many qualified teachers to even take up extreme step of suicide. Teachers, who have been working on extensions after 58 and 60 years of age, must be relieved of their services with immediate effect. All vacant posts of teachers at government schools must be filled on regular basis with full pay scale.”