Guwahati, Sept 5 (IBNS): While the entire nation celebrating “Teachers’ Day’, more than 3000 teachers in Assam on Wednesday observed Sikshak Pratarana Divas (Teachers’ Betrayal Day) and boycotted the event.
Demanding provincialism of the venture schools and regularisation of the services of teachers, teachers from different districts of the state on Wednesday marched to the Raj Bhavan in Guwahati.
In protest against the non-regularisation of over 50,000 teachers in 7,771 venture schools, the Asom Sikshak Karmachari Aikyo Mancha took out the protest rally.
The teachers shouted against the BJP-led Assam government for their failure to fulfill the promises made during the assembly election campaign.
Heavy security personnel were deployed in the Raj Bhavan road to stop the protesters.
Teachers of venture schools are demanding the state government to take appropriate steps to regularize their jobs.
It is to be mentioned that the Assam government had provincialized over 9,000 venture schools under the Assam Venture Educational Institutions (Provincialisation of Services) Act, 2011 and the state government had amended the act from 2012 to 2017, but over 50,000 teachers have been left out from the act and they have to live without salaries. The BJP-led Assam government had introduced the Assam Education (Provincialisation of Services of Teachers and Reorganisation of Educational Institutions) Amendment Bill, 2018, which was passed in the Assam Assembly in April this year.
As many as 200 venture teachers had committed suicide across the state after they were deprived by the state government.
Dr Sirumoni Baruah, president of Asom Sikshak Karmachari Aikyo Mancha said while the entire nation has celebrated Teachers’ Day, thousands venture school teachers have participated in the protest rally after they were deprived for years by the government.
The teachers have threatened to take more aggressive agitation if the state government does not fulfill their demands.
“We have served as a teacher past 20-30 years, but we are still deprived. The Assam government had adopted the provincialisation act in 2011 and it was amended in 2012, 2013, but the teachers were not covered by the act. After the Gauhati High court verdict, the government had again introduced another act,” Dr Sirumoni Baruah said.
(By Hemanta Kumar Nath, Guwahati)
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.