Block Grant Teachers Join Evaluation Duty

Bhubaneswar: The block grant teachers, who have put their indenfinite strike on hold upon assurance by the state government to consider their demands, joined Plus II answer sheet evaluation duty on Friday.

“We took the decision to take part in the evaluation process to protect the interest of students. The block grant teachers and lecturers will take to the streets again, if the government fails to fulfil our demands by July 25, as promised,” said All Odisha School-College Teachers and Employees’ United Forum convenor Prakash Mohanty.

The representatives of the forum had met chief secretary Aditya Prasad at the State Secretariate, where three demands raised by them were discussed, the previous day.

Following the meeting, the chief secretary assured the forum members to consider their demands within a period of three months and requested them to withdraw the agitation.

Later, the forum, in its steering committee meeting, came out with a resolution to put their strike on hold and give a two-month ultimatum to the government for fulfillment of the demands.

The teachers and lecturers will hit the streets again, if the demands are not met within the stipulated time period, forum convenor Prakash Mohanty had said.

The block grant teachers have been on strike in front of all the 56 Plus II answer sheet evaluation centres across the state over fulfillment of their six-point charter of demands, including issuance of a notification regarding withdrawal of a compulsory affidavit clause to avail grant-in-aid.

The teachers had boycotted the first-phase evaluation of Plus II answer sheets (from April 4 to 14) and earlier declined to cooperate in the ongoing evaluation process that began on April 16.