Over 600 members of Joint Action Council of Tamil Nadu Teachers' Organisations and Government Employees Organisations (JACTTO-GEO) staged a demonstration near the Collectorate seeking to scrap the move of posting secondary grade teachers to the proposed kindergarten classes to be started at Anganwadis.
Its district coordinator, C.E. Kannan, said that the State Government’s move to commence lower kindergarten and upper kindergarten classes was a welcome move. But, instead of recruiting teachers for the new classes, it has proposed to shift 2,848 secondary grade teachers, who are teaching for elementary school classes, to the kindergarten classes.
District secretary of Tamil Nadu Primary Schools Teachers Federation, V.S. Vairamuthu, said that 39 secondary grade teaches in Virudhunagar district alone will be demoted. “While thousands of youngsters, with montessori training, to teach children below 5 years of age, the Government was not recruiting them, but posting secondary grade teachers who have no montessori training,” he said.
The 39 teachers in Virudhunagar district have refused to take the re-deployment orders. “The State Government has asked the aided-school surplus secondary grade teachers to be sent on deputation to the Angawadis in order to put pressure on the aided schools,” he added.
Besides, the State Government has planned to merge the elementary schools functioning on the premises of high schools/higher secondary schools, thereby demoting the Headmaster/Headmistress of elementary schools as secondary grade teachers.
Mr. Kannan said that merging 3,500 elementary schools would end up in abolishing 3,500 posts of Heads of Elementary schools.
He added that all these steps were aimed at privatisation of Government schools and abolishing hundreds of posts of teachers.
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