With election due in the State, teachers’ associations have started approaching parties with their demands.
The Aided College Teachers’ Association has appealed to the parties to address their grievances in their manifestos.
The association has demanded the reinstatement of the old pension scheme, withdrawn in 2004. It has sought timely promotions, salary increments and an end to the practice of recalling salary paid while assessing pension needs.
All eligible teachers who have been appointed guest lecturers in constituent colleges must be made permanent. The teachers have also demanded that transfer counselling be transparent and corruption free. They also want the actions initiated against college teachers who participated in the protest launched by JACTTO-GEO to be dropped.
The association wanted parties to reject the National Education Policy, protect the State’s rights and prioritise the mother tongue as the medium of instruction in schools.
ACTA general secretary S. Sahaya Satish said the association had a policy of meeting representatives of parties during the Assembly election to present demands. A team of office-bearers met Udhayanidhi Stalin, secretary of the youth wing of DMK, in Tiruchi, and appealed to him to include their charter of demands in the manifesto.
Meanwhile, a group of professors from the University of Madras has written to the Chief Minister, appealing for the release of funds towards pensions to retired employees.
The Professors’ Forum, in its letter, said the 163-year-old institution had been paying pensions from its own funds. But the number of retirees had increased, and, currently, the university had to pay pensions to 1,465 retired employees. With funds from the distance education programme falling, it was unable to honour its commitments.
Since there are no audit objections regarding the payment of pensions, the government should consider paying the pending ₹55 crore, and the current year’s deficit of ₹36 crore, immediately, the forum said.
“A few pensioners have died in the last four years. Some of them have postponed the marriage of their children. The non-teaching staff have been particularly affected,” said the forum’s general secretary, S.S. Sundaram.
