Government primary school teachers staged a demonstration at Tipu Sultan Gardens near the office of the Deputy Commissioner here on Monday demanding the resumption of the promotion process. They raised slogans against the Deputy Director of Public Instruction (DDPI), accusing him of unnecessarily halting the process of promoting eligible primary school teachers to high school teachers for the last three years.
“During the promotion process in 2011-12, it was found that there were 17 teachers who had gone on long leave for the B.Ed course, but continued to receive salaries for all the 10 months even though they were on loss-of-pay. As per the direction of Director, Department of Public Instruction, the then DDPI Parameshwarappa, excluded these teachers from the list of teachers eligible for promotion. These teachers later returned the salaries they received during the months that they were studying and asked that they be considered for promotion. The DDPI then stopped the very promotion process itself,” Tairaj Marchattal, a teacher, said. Hundreds of other teachers who are eligible to get a promotion are suffering for no fault of theirs, he said.
According to the agitating teachers, the number of teachers who received salaries even when on long-leave for B.Ed has grown from the initial 17 to around 50.
“The DDPI should go ahead with promoting other eligible teachers and keep the errant teachers aside till their issue is completely settled,” Narasappa, another teacher, said.
He said that the Director of the department had directed the DDPI to take action against the teachers who received the salaries even when on long-leave and also against the concerned officers who granted the payment. “Even after three years, no action has been initiated against anybody involved in the issue. The only thing that the DDPI did was suspending the promotion process indefinitely, due to which eligible teachers are suffering,” he said.
