In all, 13 members of the State Legislative Council will stage an indefinite dharna in front of the Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru from September 6 pressing the government to fulfil various demands of teachers, according to Ganesh Karnik, MLC. The participating MLCs are from the teachers’ and graduates’ constituencies, he told presspersons here on Monday.
Mr. Karnik, the Chief Whip of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, said that six MLCs each from the BJP and the Janata Dal (Secular) and one from the Congress will sit in the dharna.
He said that a charter of 32 demands has been prepared. Mr. Karnik alleged that the State government did not have proper guidelines for the transfer of teachers. The transfers should be made before the commencement of the academic year and not during the course of the academic year. If teachers were transferred in the middle of the academic year, it would affect both the students and the teachers.
The MLC said that though teachers have been sitting on dharna in the Freedom Park, many of their demands have not been fulfilled. Hence, the MLCs have decided to sit in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Vidhana Soudha. Mr. Karnik said that recently the government issued a notification for the recruitment of 10,000 teachers.
But there is confusion regarding qualifications for applying to the post of physical education teachers. The government should address it, he said.
He said that the government should extend the recruitment on compassionate grounds to degree colleges as well. Now it is applicable to high schools. The government should lift restrictions on the recruitment of non-teaching staff in schools and colleges once such staff retired from the service. Hence, the recruitment should continue, he said. The government should extend the grant-in-aid to those private schools and colleges started after 1995, the MLC added.
