Odisha primary teachers resume duties boycotting dress-code

The primary school teachers resumed duties in their respective schools on Friday while boycotting the dress code.

As announced earlier by the United Primary Teachers’ Federation (UPTF), the agitating teachers begun their duties across Odisha boycotting uniform.

“We have four demands. The first one is to abolish junior teacher contractual system and introduce regular teacher postings. The second one is to provide six salary increments to the contractual teachers who have already completed six years on job. The third one is to scrap the new pension scheme and re-introduce the old pension scheme. And the fourth one is to pay salary as per the Central government pay grade,” said a teacher of Gangapur Primary School under Koraput’s Jeypore block.

“The government did not allow us to stage protest in Bhubaneswar, which is undemocratic. We will continue to boycott uniform in school as long as the government does not consider all our demands,” said another teacher at the same school.

It is pertinent to mention here that after the local Police denied them permission to hold protest in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday, the steering committee of the federation assembled at the Exhibition Ground in the Smart City and decided to call off the protest.

However, they decided not to extend cooperation in several government works until their demands are not fulfilled.

As per the primary teachers, they will boycott the dress-code and will not cook any mid-day-meal on their own until then, citing that the government is not paying them a penny for the uniform nor the mid-day-meal money has reached the primary schools in the last six months.

(Reported By T Gourishankar, OTV)