Teachers body threatens to boycott checking of class 12 answer sheets

Mumbai: Four days before Class 12 exams are set to commence (February 21), the Maharashtra State Junior College Teachers’ Association has threatened to boycott assessment of answer sheets thereby leading to a delay in the declaration of results

Mumbai: Four days before Class 12 exams are set to commence (February 21), the Maharashtra State Junior College Teachers’ Association has threatened to boycott assessment of answer sheets thereby leading to a delay in the declaration of results. They claim the state government has not yet acted on their assurances to their demands such as raising the retirement age to 60, restoring the old pension scheme (OPS) etc.

HT Image

The teachers body claims that after they had raised these concerns in December 2022, the government had reassured them but have not acted on it despite multiple agitations at various places.

On Thursday, the Maharashtra State Federation of Junior College Teachers Organisation wrote a letter to the school education minister informing about the boycott, along with a list of their demands.

“After the agitations in December 2022, the state government was notified that if it failed to deliver on its assurances and if our concerns remain unresolved, we will have to boycott the process of checking papers. However, the state ignored our warning, and now we are forced to act on them,” the letter says.

Teachers have made several demands, including raising the retirement age to 60, implementing the old pension scheme (OPS), adopting the seniority promotion practice used by state government employees, which is based on years of service, and filling vacant positions. The threat to boycott paper-checking comes amid an ongoing strike by non-teaching staff at colleges and universities across Maharashtra, which has already impacted HSC practical exams in some areas of the state.