PHOTO: ASHOKE CHAKRABARTY

GRABBING ATTENTION: Teaching and non-teaching employees of unaided colleges in Orissa polishing shoes of people in front of the Assembly in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday.

BHUBANESWAR: Even as the discussion on the state of affairs of education generated much heat in the Assembly on Wednesday, teachers belonging to various categories laid a siege to Mahatma Gandhi Marg virtually.

In their attempt to highlight their demands, men teachers resorted to polishing shoes of the public while their women counterparts went begging on the streets.

The money collected would be donated to Chief Minister's Relief Fund, they said.

Urging immediate release of grant-in-aid for as many as 650 private colleges operating since 1990, more than 2000 under-paid college teachers had spent a sleepless night on Tuesday.

"After undertaking 16 years of teaching in lieu of a meagre salary ranging between Rs 200 and Rs 400 per month, we are now the most hopeless creatures in the world.

Almost all the teachers have lost respect in the family due to their financial handicap. This is the only profession (shoe shining) left for us to make our points," State Un-aided College Teachers and Employees Coordination Committee (SUCTECC) convenor Golak Nayak said.

As many as 650 colleges (445 Plus II and 185 Plus III) founded between the year 1990 and 2005 are not getting any financial aid from the State Government.

However, over 7,000 teachers and employees of these institutions have been working in these colleges in the hope that the State Government may some day sanction grant-in-aid to their institutions and they will start receiving regular salaries.

"We have decided not to leave this place until the Naveen Patnaik Government takes a concrete step to sanction grant-in-aid for our institutions," Mr Nayak said.

Police on alert

City police are now on high-alert as the colleges teachers threatened to break into the houses of MLAs to polish their shoes.

"If the situation remains unchanged, we will not hesitate to clean toilets of these policy-makers to draw their attention," Ranjan Kumar Panda, a college teacher, said.

Women teachers have decided to celebrate on the street the Margasira Gurubar (Thursday of the current Margasira month), a ritual associated with goddess Laxmi. The festival is observed by women at home.

Similarly, members of the All Orissa Non-government College Teachers' Association (AONCTA), the All Orissa Primary Teachers' Federation and employees of 39 Plus II colleges descended on the main road outside the Assembly.

While primary teachers demanded transfer of their division from control of panchayats to the State Education Department and regularisation of jobs of Siksha Sahayaks (teaching assistants) as regular teachers, the AONCTA urged to that decision of the State Government concerning withdrawal of recognition be put on hold.

About 26 non-government colleges had lost their recognition following the detection of large-scale malpractice during Plus II examination in 2005.

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