Block grant teachers to boycott panchayat polls

Bhubaneswar: Odisha block grant teachers under the banner of Block Grant Secondary School Teachers and Employees Association have threatened to boycott the ensuing panchayat polls scheduled to be held in February next year.
The association demanded that if their nine point charter of demands is not met, they will not cooperate with the State government in the election.

“The BJD government is not considering our issue seriously. We are unable to continue the stir because we are more concerned about the future of the students. But this time we have made up our minds to continue the agitation. We will boycott the panchayat polls if our demands are not considered,” general secretary of the Association Prashant Mohapatra said.

They too demanded a rollback of State Government’s ‘teacher-on-call’ policy.

According to the association, as many as 32,000 teachers and support staff from 2,208 schools supported the Thursday agitation.

It may be mentioned here that the teachers have been protesting demanding fulfilment of their nine-point charter of demands that include government takeover of grant-in-aid schools, uniform payscale for similar job profiles and provision of all the facilities to block grant teachers which are being offered under mass education and secondary education systems.