The manner in which the counselling for transfers for elementary school teachers was conducted on Thursday and Friday left much to be desired, according to disappointed participants.
Reflection of money and political power was said to be quite pronounced in the two-day exercise that was apparently conducted in a veil of secrecy, without even the list of vacancies for the transfers within unions and from one union to another being put up. The teachers feel agonised since the measure introduced for transparency by none other the Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in her earlier regime had got derailed.
Sensing something fishy in the “hiding of school-wise vacancy details”, a delegation of the Tamil Nadu Elementary School Teachers' Federation had approached the District Collector Jayashree Muralidharan on Wednesday for intervention. The Collector had reportedly spoken to top officials in the Directorate of Elementary Education to ensure transparency.
Yet, only 25 per cent of the 81 transfers were arrived at through the normal procedure, according to a senior district-level functionary of the federation.
“There is little that officials in-charge of the transfer counselling could do. There is pressure from several quarters,” said an official conversant with the exercise.
For the transfer of elementary teachers, a caucus of Assistant Elementary Educational Officers and a senior administrative staff in the office of DEEO influenced the entire process. According to an aggrieved teacher, the process was hushed up for vacancies pertaining to Musiri and Thathaiyengarpet Unions. The utmost secrecy was maintained in filling up posts to vacancies in schools in and around the city limits, disappointed participants in the transfer counselling alleged, and demanded that the two-day exercise be declared null and void. “The transfer counselling should be conducted again under strict monitoring by the Chief Minister,” the Federation functionaries emphasised.
When queried, the District Elementary Educational Officer K. Subramanian denied any wrong-doing and said the list was put up before the start of the counselling. A total of 81 transfer orders were issued. Sixty eight teachers were transferred within unions, 10 teachers were transferred from one union to another, and 11 teachers were posted from other districts to vacancies in Tiruchi district, he said.
