Bhubaneswar: Hundreds of junior school teachers from across the state Friday staged a protest here demanding regularisation of their services and withdrawal of contractual appointment system. Holding posters and banners against the contractual appointment of junior teachers in schools, the teachers, including women, demonstrated at Mahatma Gandhi Marg here.
The teachers, representing various schools across the state, demanded immediate regularisation of their posts and scrapping of the contractual appointment system for junior teachers in schools. “We are getting a monthly salary of Rs 16,000 each, which is insufficient to manage our family. However, in many other BJP-ruled states, the junior teachers are drawing a good amount of salary,” said a lady agitating teacher. The government does not even provide any social security to the junior teachers, she said. “We demand the government to provide ‘equal pay for equal work’ to us and regularise our jobs. The contractual appointment of junior teachers at primary schools must be scrapped,” said another teacher at the protest site.
About 16,000 junior teachers had been serving in different government-run primary schools across the state. The agitating teachers threatened to intensify their protest if the government did not fulfill their demands.