All Assam TET Qualified Teachers' Association: Contractual teachers refuse to accept annual appraisal system

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The All Assam TET Qualified Teachers' Association has asserted that the teachers' community will not accept the system of annual appraisal of teachers "under any circumstances".

A decision to this effect was taken at the executive meeting of the association on Sunday, its president Trailokya Deka told The Sentinel on Monday.

Deka said that the State Government had assured to almost regularize the services of contractual teachers, but ended up merely extending their period of service up to 60 years of age. Moreover, he said, now the government has practically restricted the service period to one year on the pretext of annual appraisal application, because the services of any teacher may be terminated on the ground of inefficiency. The association will never accept this "unfair and partisan decision", Deka said.

He further informed that it was resolved at the executive meeting of the association that if the government does not fulfil its commitment to regularize the services of contractual teachers, they will not cooperate in any non-teaching task assigned to them.

Further, Deka said, it was decided in the meeting that members of the association will stage protests from next week at various DCs' offices and submit memoranda regarding their demands. He said that if their demands were still not met, then the association's members would stage a sit-in in Guwahati during the winter session of the Assam Legislative Assembly, which will start on December 20.

Deka said that the association had also decided to send all documents pertaining to regularization of contractual teachers' services, along with mass signatures, to the Governor and Chief Minister of Assam, the Union Education Minister, the Prime Minister and, if required, to the President of India. The association has also decided to stage a protest programme in New Delhi if the need arises, Deka said.

In order to make the State's school administration system more efficient, effective, and transparent, Education Minister Ranoj Pegu had launched three online applications on November 21, 2022 - Teacher Performance Appraisal, Basic Infrastructure Survey and School Inspection. The department developed a Web Application for 'Appraisal of Teachers' Performance' for the online collection of performance of TET Contractual and State Pool teachers. Teachers are registered in the portal and will have to submit their self-appraisal reports through the online web application. Head Teachers (HTs), Block Approval Authority (BAA) concerned and District Approval Authority (DAA) will assess the self-appraisal reports of the TET Contractual/State Pool teachers. At each level, the assessment will carry 50 marks, and the final assessment will have an average of 150 marks. In the case of a TET Contractual/State Pool teacher holding the charge of HT or in the case of a single teacher, the assessment will carry 50 marks at each block and district level, and such teachers will get an average mark out of 100. The final approval will be from the State Approval Authority.

The state has 26,064 contractual teachers under SSA and 9,254 teachers under the State Pool working in around 42,000 lower and upper primary schools.

The Assam Sarba Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) has already requested the Deputy Commissioners of various districts to conduct the annual performance appraisal of SSA contractual teachers and State Pool teachers working under their jurisdiction. SSA has further set the deadline for submission of annual performance appraisal reports by the district approval authorities to the State Approval Authority in the web portal on December 29, 2022.

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