When teacher aspirants took the District Selection Committee (DSC) examination in 1998, little did they anticipate a cruel turn of fate.
Exactly 20 years later, they are still petitioning the powers-that-be, running around the corridors of power, pleading with bureaucrats and finally praying for divine intervention.
On Monday, the teachers-to-be congregated at Alipiri, the foot of Tirumala hills, and broke 20 coconuts, indicating the number of years of service they have lost.
They collectively offered into the ' Srivari Hundi ' (the deity’s collection box) an amount of ₹1,998, marking the year from which they have been pleading with the government.
The DSC-1998 wreaked havoc on the lives of thousands of prospective teachers, who never made it to the goal post that was allegedly moved in the course of the game. When the eligibility ratio was not met after the test, the cut-off marks were subsequently relaxed.
Instead of filling up the posts with those qualified at the first stage, the two lists were merged for the interviews, reportedly rendering injustice to the original beneficiaries.
The test also saw allegations of irregularities in the oral interviews, due to which the teachers staged agitations and even moved the court. Twenty years on, there is no end in sight to their woes.
Promises but no delivery
“After working in a private school, I have taken up my family profession of washing clothes, which fetches me a fairly decent sum”, 1998 DSC Qualified Teachers Union Secretary M. Govindaraju told The Hindu wryly. Ditto is the case of A. Damodaram and R. Nagaraju, working in private schools for less than Rs.10,000 a month – making it hard to make ends meet.
The issue has seen four Chief Ministers, three of them, viz., N. Chandrababu Naidu, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, personally assuring them to do justice.
Even the high-level committee headed by the then Education Secretary I.V. Subba Rao gave recommendation in favour of the teachers in 2005. In the present dispensation — the TDP Government in A.P. — the Teacher-MLCs panel recommended to the government last year to appoint 4,534 of them — those that came under the residual State of AP — on Minimum Time Scale (MTS) basis, but the Government is yet to act upon it.
Too long a wait
“Most of us in the late 40s or early 50s have already lost 20 years of service, but are not yet settled in life. How long will have to wait for a solution?” Mr. Govindaraju lamented.
With receding hairlines and greying locks bearing testimony to their age and patience, the teachers-to-be hope to enter a classroom at least for the remaining years before retirement.
