STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: When teachers in rest of India celebrated Teachers’ Day on Thursday, the teachers from various organizations in Assam had to stage a protest at Chachal protest ground here in support of their demand for an amendment to the Assam Educational (Provincialization of Services Teachers and Reorganization of Educational Institution) Act, 2017.
The Asom Sikshak Karmachari Aikya Mancha, the All Assam Recognized ME Teachers’ Association, the All Assam Recognized ME Teachers’ Association 2005-06, and the Assam Non-provincialized Educational Institution Suraksha Mancha stage the protest jointly.
Activists of the Asom Sikshak Karmachari Aikya Mancha staging a token hunger strike, at Chachal Dharna ground in Guwahati on Thursday, in support of their demand for Provincizalition and other issues.
“Under the Assam Venture Educational Institutions (Provincialization of Services) Act, 2011, a total of 41,634 teachers and employees working in 8,832 venture educational institutions reaped the benefit of the Act. However, 33,000 teachers and employees posts have not been provincialized as yet. Later, under the Assam Educational (Provincialization of Services Teachers and Reorganization of Educational Institution) Act, 2017, as many as 12,000 teachers and employees of 2,000 educational institutions which were government approved, recognized and finically aided were kept outside the ambit of the Act,” said Asom Sikshak Karmachari Aikya Mancha secretary Anwar Hussain Choudhury.
These excluded teachers and employees have been working selflessly without payment since the past 20 to 25 years, and some of whom have even retired in the process. As such, during the protest, the Asom Sikshak Karmachari Aikya Mancha said that in compliance with the Act, the teachers and employees are provided with appointment orders. They also insisted that in the next Assembly Session, the various educational institutions, which were not provincialized, should be provincialized and the teachers’ posts should be provided as per the Act. While the Mancha resorted to a hunger strike, the All Assam Recognized ME Teachers’ Association masked their faces with black bandanas during the protest.