Agitating Teachers Threaten To Lock Up Schools, Colleges From Tomorrow

Bhubaneswar: Thousands of block grant teachers, who are on an indefinite strike at Mahatma Gandhi Marg here since August 16, have threatened to lock up all government schools and colleges across the state from Monday.

“Over one lakh teachers and lecturers of different educational institutions will participate in the indefinite strike and lock up the gates of all the educational institutions run by Odisha government in the state,” said All Odisha School-College Teachers and Employees’ United Forum convenor Prakash Mohanty on Sunday.

The forum had earlier passed a resolution to put its month-long strike on hold on April 19 following assurance from the state government to consider its demands, including abolition of block grant system and full grant-in-aid. “We were left with no option but to hit the streets again with the government remaining callous towards our legitimate demands,” Mohanty added.

Pressing for their demands, the teachers had boycotted both Matric and Plus II evaluation process this year by staging protests before different evaluation centres.