Government school teachers, under the banner of the Democratic Teachers Front (DTF), burnt an effigy of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann and staged a protest outside the Deputy Commissioner’s office here on Wednesday to protest the alleged burden of non-academic duties.
Addressing the protesters, the DTF state president Vikramdev Singh and district president Harvinder Singh Rakhra alleged that the government had assigned Census duties to teachers across Punjab, affecting academic activities in schools. They claimed that teachers had been undergoing continuous training for the past month, disrupting studies of students and causing mental stress among them.
DTF activist Gagan Ranu said the new academic session had just begun and schools were already occupied with admissions and other academic work, but teachers were being diverted towards non-teaching assignments.
The protesters alleged that despite claims of an “education revolution” by the state government, teachers were increasingly being engaged in duties such as booth level officers’ work, drug surveys, Census exercises and health card-related tasks. ADC (Urban Development) Navreet Kaur Sekhon held a meeting with representatives of the teachers’ union and discussed their issues. The teachers raised their demands, including exemption from Census duty for pregnant women, mothers with children below two years, single parents and teachers facing medical issues.
They also sought a cap on deployment of teachers from schools and exemption from duties in remote areas or outside their blocks.
The ADC assured the protesters of arranging a meeting with the DC within the next two days to address their genuine demands. The DTF activists warned that they would intensify the agitation if their demands were not addressed by the government.
