Odisha announces regularisation of contractual teachers

The Odisha School and Mass Education department on Thursday notified the regularisation of contractual teachers in the State.

"The treatment of regular service period/regularisation of teachers was under consideration of the government. Now, therefore, the government is pleased to consider the service period/regularisation of such teachers joining on contractual mode /initial appointees," read the notification.

However, irrespective of their date of regularisation, they will be allowed seniority as per the merit list in their year of recruitment and will continue to be senior to the teachers recruited in subsequent batches or year of recruitment.

They will also be allowed notional pay not less than the teachers recruited as per the Odisha Group-B posts (Contractual appointment rules) 2013.

Soon after the announcement of the government, the Odisha government high school contractual teachers’ association sitting on dharna for 13 days withdrew its strike.

The association’s president, Panchanan Jena said, “Though CM Naveen Patnaik announced regularisation of all contractual employees in the State six months back, in actuality 18000 contractual High School teachers were not included in that scheme. We have been demanding regularisation for years.”

“Though this notification does not make us regular immediately, I think this notice is a good enough reason for us to end our strike. And I am hopeful the government will publish the detailed guidelines of our regularisation soon,” Jena added.