Secondary teachers from different districts of West Bengal, members of the Secondary Teachers and Employees’ Association (STEA), brought out a protest rally with several demands, including introduction of the pass-fail system in schools and filling up of vacant posts of primary and secondary schools and madrasas.
The rally started from Subodh Mullick Square, through S.N. Banerjee Road, to Gandhi Murti.
The protest called for measures to be taken by the chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee and education minister, Partha Chatterjee.
Around 350 teachers from all the districts of West Bengal participated in the rally. The general secretary of STEA, Biswajit Mitra, said the issue of re-introducing the pass-fail system has been raised repeatedly with the state government, it is yet to take action.
“Since the quality of education is deteriorating at a fast pace, we demand from the education minister to revive the system immediately. Moreover, for the last three years, teachers and employees of secondary schools have been deprived of pending DA. We demand that all outstanding DA should be paid at once.”
The STEA’s immediate appeal concerns filling up of all the vacant posts of primary and secondary schools and madrasas, through the school service commission. Skilled and professional teachers need to be appointed in all of these vacant posts, Mr Mitra said.
Mr Mitra further alleged that para teachers, vocational teachers and part-time teachers are being compelled to work for nominal wages. The employees of secondary and primary schools, especially the group-D employees and librarians are completely deprived of financial stability
“In West Bengal, there are thousands of trained graduate teachers who receive way less wages than the ordinary graduate and post graduate teachers. We want that all the primary and secondary teachers should be included in a well-paid salary structure,” Mr Mitra said.