Students Oppose Locking Up School By Agitating Block Grant Teachers

Bhubaneswar: While the block grant teachers have intensified their ongoing strike by locking up nearly 500 schools across Odisha, a number of students and their parents on Friday opposed this means of protest.

“We had to sit have idle wasting our precious time. Our future is at stake and our academics is being badly hit due to the longstanding conflict between the teachers and the government,” a student of Bhadrak town said.

Similarly, students of different schools in Deogarh and Bargarh districts have also condemned the locking up the schools by the agitating teachers without considering their future.

Convenor of All Odisha School-College Teachers and Employees’ United Forum said, “We admit that the education of more than 35 lakh students across the state has been affected due to the strike. But, it is the state government that has forced us to hit the streets, finding no other alternative to decry its apathy.”

Odisha School and Mass Education department had on Thursday directed the district education officers (DEOs) and block education officers (BEOs) to cut the salaries of teachers, remaining absent without permission or on proper ground.

In a letter to all the DEOs and BEOs, department principal secretary Pradipta Mohapatra had said that unauthorized absence of contractual teachers would be treated as reason for not renewing the annual contract due in March next year. Those teachers should be disengaged after following due procedure, he added.

The block grant teachers, who are on an indefinite strike at Mahatma Gandhi Marg here since the last 23 days demanding hike in grant-in-aid, 25 per cent increment for contractual teachers, pension and ex-cadre abolition, had on Wednesday observed Teachers’ Day as ‘Black Day’ to put pressure on the government to fulfill their demands.