Indore: State’s teachers association of government schools has called a protest against the termination of 16 teachers and will be holding rallies in every block on December 5. A larger protest would be staged at district level on December 10, and at the state level, association will be staging a protest in Bhopal on December 15.
The teachers have been terminated on the grounds of new 20-50 rule and underperformance. The teachers of schools that turned out poor results (less than 30 per cent of students passing in board exams) were given to chances to pass in an exam and if they failed in both then they were terminated it they had worked for more than 20 years or if they were above 50 years.
“There is a new rule quoting that a teacher would be terminated if they complete 20 years of service or 50 years of age, which is not justified as there is no such rule for any other government employee,” Aarif Anjum, state teachers association president, said.
He explained that this was just a way to torment teachers without giving proper reasoning for such a reason. “Dr Prabhuram Choudhary, minister of school education department, did not perform at par in the evaluation, so how can he decide to terminate teachers,” Anjum questioned.
The previous rule before teacher’s test noted that teachers of high school and higher secondary school delivering less than 30 percent results would be penalised by stopping one increment. “An engineer is not terminated when a bridge breaks, doctors are not fired based on the deteriorating condition of patients, so why teachers are being tormented if a student fails?” Anjum said.
School delivered performance, terminated teacher did not even teach!
Prabhu Dayal Tiwari, a government teacher serving at Umariya government school, is among the terminated teachers. However, he had not been teaching the students for a year, as he was kept on duty by election commission. Nevertheless, the school where he was serving delivered the required results. The school or the teacher was not under 30 percent passing result rule. Yet, he has been terminated under 50 year age rule, association members said.