Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia wrote to Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal on Tuesday urging him to give his assent to a Bill that seeks to regularise guest teachers.
The Regularisation of Services of Guest Teachers and Teachers Engaged under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Bill, 2017, was passed by the Delhi Assembly on October 4. Mr. Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio, also sought an appointment with the L-G and offered to bring with him a group of guest teachers to brief Mr. Baijal on significance of what the Bill, which will regularise 15,000 guest teachers, aimed to accomplish.
“The Bill is now pending your consideration,” Mr. Sisodia wrote.
“I have asked the Education Department and the Law Department to route their inputs to you via the Ministers-in-Charge. While their inputs are awaited, I would like to urge the L-G to give assent to this Bill,” the Deputy CM wrote, adding that he had sought an appointment with the L-G last month but his office had “refused to grant” the same.
Mr. Sisodia pointed out that education was a subject that came within the purview of the elected government of the Capital and was an area that it had been working on “day-and-night”.
‘15,000 jobs at stake’
“We have invested a lot of money and effort in teacher training and capacity building over the last two-and-a-half years. If the guest teachers who are currently teaching in our schools were to be replaced with fresh teachers, we would suffer a setback to our education reform process and would need to re-start the process from scratch,” Mr. Sisodia said, adding that the future of 16 lakh students and the livelihoods of 15,000 teachers depended on his decision.
