Private school teachers affiliated to the Telangana Recognised Schools Management Association (TRSMA) on Saturday besieged Karimnagar town by staging a massive dharna in protest against alleged threats issued by government teachers and Revenue officials to people to stop welfare schemes if their children are not admitted into government schools.
Several thousand teachers and non-teaching staff of over 800 private schools arrived by school buses and other modes of transport to Karimnagar and assembled at Circus Grounds and took out a procession to the Collecotarate carrying placards and staged a massive dharna. The arrival of thousands of agitators caused traffic congestion on the busy road in the town. Incidentally, private institutions declared holiday on Saturday following the dharna programme.
TRSMA State general secretary Y. Shekhar Rao alleged that government teachers, who feared the prospect of closure of educational institutions following low enrolment, threatened rural people with stopping welfare schemes such as ration cards, pensions, and housing scheme if they did not send their wards to government schools. People’s representatives were also harassing private school managements by stopping school buses in the villages though they had all permissions, he said.
Demanding that government teachers, employees and people’s representatives join their children in government schools, he asked whether the rural masses had no right to select the school for their children for quality education.
Government schools should compete with private educational institutions by providing quality education with dedication instead of threatening rural masses, he said.
He demanded that the government abolish pre-primary sections in government schools as they were not trained to provide play-way method of teaching to tiny tots. He urged the government to stop “harassment” of private educational institutions in the name of inspection and demanded that the government provide health cards to all employees of private educational institutions.
Later, A delegation met DEO S Srinivas Chary and submitted a memorandum.
