Manish Sisodia urges LG to give assent to Bill to regularise guest teachers

AAP leader and Delhi’s Education Minister Manish Sisodia.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia today urged Lt Governor (LG) Anil Baijal to give his assent to a Bill passed by the Delhi Assembly earlier this month to regularise guest teachers. Sisodia, in a letter Baijal, has also sought an appointment with him in which a group of guest teachers will brief the LG on the issue.

The deputy chief minister, who also holds the education portfolio, alleged that he had sought an appointment with Baijal last month, but the LG’s office refused to grant the same. The Delhi Assembly had passed the Regularisation of Services of Guest Teachers and Teachers Engaged Under the ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’ Bill, 2017. The Bill advocates regularising 15,000 guest teachers.

“I would like to come and meet the L-G, with a group of guest teachers, before any decision is taken on this issue… it would be injustice to not give an audience to the representatives of 15,000 (guest) teachers, whose lives depend upon this decision,” he said in the letter.

Sisodia also said, “If we lose the services of guest teachers, we lose the benefits of their experience.” The deputy chief minister said that if the decision is taken to replace guest teachers, it will take at least a year for their replacements to join the service.