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Jobless teachers protest in Patiala, to meet Suresh Kumar on April 3
Police cordoned off the road leading to the CM’s house and stopped the protesting teachers near YPS Chowk
Demanding jobs, unemployed BEd, ETT (elementary teacher training) and TET (teacher eligibility test) teachers staged a protest near the residence of Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh in Patiala on Wednesday.
Police cordoned off the road leading to the CM’s house and stopped the protesting teachers near YPS Chowk. Officials of the district administration and police convened a meeting with representatives of teachers’ unions.
Meanwhile, in wake of coronavirus threat, the administration has already imposed a ban on holding protests in district. State president of the Unemployed TET-Passed ETT Teachers’ Union, Deepak Kamboj, said that the officials have informed them that a meeting with top functionaries of the state cannot take place before March 31 due to government advisory.
“Officials of the district administration have assured us of a meeting with chief principal secretary (CPS) to CM, Suresh Kumar, on April 3,” he said, adding that they had met the CPS on March 12, but no announcement regarding recruitments has been made so far.
“We were assured that the CM will make a formal announcement on March 16, the day his government completed three years in power, but nothing happened,” the protesters said.
They added that for now, they are cooperating with the administration due to the coronavirus advisory, but will intensify the protest once the situation improves.
The TET-ETT teachers are demanding recruitment notification for all 12,000 vacant posts and increase in upper age limit to 42 years.
Similarly, the BEd teachers are demanding a job notification for at least 15,000 posts and an unemployment allowance of ₹2,500. They are also asking the government to end the minimum requirement of 55% marks in graduation for backlog posts in the handicap quota.
