MADURAI
The Tamil Nadu Graduate Teachers’ Association has expressed dissatisfaction over the comment recently made by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami in Salem, where he reportedly said that teachers were receiving unreasonably high salaries for the work they were doing.
In a statement issued to the media on Thursday, K. Mahendran, State president of the association, said the Chief Minister’s ‘insulting’ comments had saddened the teaching fraternity.
Arguing that the periodic increase in salary was determined by the government by considering inflation and other factors, Mr. Mahendran said that the Chief Minister may have made these comments based on the misleading information he must have received about the increase in the salaries.
Pointing to the CM’s alleged remarks that even primary school headmasters were receiving ₹ 82,000 as monthly salary, S. Murugan, Madurai district secretary of the association, said that it was not completely true.
“Only a few headmasters with service of 30 years or more could be receiving that amount. It is not true for all the headmasters,” he said.
Importantly, the association stressed that it was wrong on the part of the government to consider the expenditure on education sector as just an expenditure. “It must be seen as an investment on country’s future as this is where young minds are moulded,” Mr. Murugan said.
