Other States - Orissa   

School teachers threaten State-wide agitation

CUTTACK: Taking a cue from the Puri Rath Yatra, the disgruntled teachers of the State are planning to take out “Education Rath” throughout the State in the winter this year to emancipate education and relieve them from sufferings.

Speaking to newsmen here on Sunday, the members of Orissa Secondary School Teachers’ Association (OSSTA), the largest teachers’ body of the State, have threatened to launch massive agitations across the State for what they called ‘unshackling the education from government’s captive.”

OSSTA general secretary Kishore Kumar Panda informed that the teachers’ agitations would start in phased manner from this month and continue till the end of winter. “Teachers across the State will first picket in front of all the district inspector (DI) offices on July 19 and stage protest meetings.

During the winter session of the Assembly, the teachers would agitate in front of the legislators’ residence and on the day the House would discuss on education, all teachers will court arrest”, Panda said.

The teacher leaders maintain that the school education in the State is in doldrums. Having around 72,000 teachers across 7,139 secondary schools, OSSTA has been agitating for release of block grants to 2,375 schools so as to facilitate pay revision of teachers of these schools. There were increments in the salary of these teachers since January 2004.

The teachers also expressed concern over delay in supply of textbooks to students of Class VIII to Class X even as the academic session has already begun for nearly three months.

They also criticized about the ongoing mess in the state Board of Secondary Education (BSE) and the lackadaisical manner in which this year’s Matriculation examination was held.

KORAPUT: Ajit Kumar Lima, the secretary of All Orissa Elementary Trained Graduate Teachers’ Association, Koraput district branch said that the association has demanded for filling up of the 6,000 vacant headmasters posts in the Upper Primary Schools, being managed by the State Government by promoting the working trained graduate teachers to the cadre level-3.

The posts were lying vacant for the last 12 years, Mr. Mahanty said.

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