Talks between teachers and government to end stalemate bear no fruit 

The discussion between the state government and the agitating teachers once again remained inconclusive on Tuesday. 

After the meeting with the Chief Secretary, the teachers’ association informed that they would intensify the strike as the talks have failed to resolve their issues. 

While informing about the outcome of the meeting, Rajesh Mohanty, a member of the Joint Primary School Teachers' Association, said, “The Chief Secretary has assured us that the anomalies will be done away with. But we want to know when this will happen. There is no clarity on this which has caused anger among the teachers.”

Interestingly, the Chief Secretary reportedly told the teachers that he had been not aware of their demands and that he had come to know about their problems only yesterday. The agitating teachers termed it as unfortunate. 

The demand of the agitating teachers is the abolishment of the contractual appointment system. Their other demands included an increment to teachers who were appointed since 2001 and the reimplementation of the old pension scheme. 

They alleged the government had promised to abolish the contractual appointment system and regularize jobs of all the teachers at the higher secondary schools who had joined after 2004. However, these contractual teachers alleged that the notification of the General Administration department lacks transparency.