Decision to promote regular teachers challenged

The city government’s decision to grant “ad hoc” promotions to 2,738 regular teachers as lecturers to teach students of different subjects and age groups without training for the new job has been challenged before the Delhi High Court.

Two students have challenged the city government’s decision contending that schoolchildren were being used as guinea pigs to provide benefits to teachers.

Justice Sunil Gaur listed the case for hearing on May 10, subject to removal of technical objections to the petition raised by the High Court Registry.

The students’ plea said the April 11 promotion order, if implemented, will result in “displacing and transplanting existing batch of teachers to a new situation involving students of different age groups and different subjects to which they were neither ever exposed to nor trained to handle”.

The petition also contended that the orders promoting trained graduate teachers (TGT) as the postgraduate teachers (PGT) or lecturers will only make students suffer.

The petition said the government’s order will lead to a situation where teachers who presently teach maths, English or science to the students of Classes VI to X will have to teach economics, geography, history and political science to students of Classes XI and XII after promotion.