Teachers' stir today

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Sept. 10: Members of Progressive Platform of Technical Teachers and Staff will go for a half-day cease work on tomorrow in all the polytechnic institutes of the state, demanding that the contractual staff be offered permanent jobs. Addressing a Press conference here today, secretary of the PPTTS, Mr Arindam Biswas, said they would press the government to recruit permanent teachers and staff in Polytechnic institutes of the state, where over 400 posts are lying vacant, and immediately abolish the appointment of contractual junior teachers and staff. Mr Biswas claimed that the state finance minister had assured in his speech in assembly just before the assembly poll 2006, that the government would appoint the contractual teachers as permanent ones, but no initiative was taken to implement it till date. “There has been no recruitment in the last 10 years in Polytechnic institutes of the state, except the appointment of a foreman in Malda Polytechnic recently”, Mr Biswas alleged. A part time teacher of Malda Polytechnic, said: “We get a mere Rs 7 per class as remuneration. The total income of a junior lecturer (contractual) is less than Rs 1,200 per month on an average.” “The government should execute consolidated pay of Rs 8,000 for junior lecturers”, Mr Biswas, secretary of the PPTTS, Malda Polytechnic unit, said. A total of 32 permanent posts are lying vacant in Malda Polytechnic, they said. #