Part-time special teachers who were handling subjects such as physical education, drawing and music in schools launched an indefinite protest demanding regularisation, on Monday.
Scores of school teachers have camped on the Directorate of Public Instruction campus in Nungambakkam demanding that they be made permanent or a consolidated monthly salary of ₹20,000.
In 2012, the government appointed 16,549 teachers on a salary of ₹5,000 per month. They were employed on a 11-month contract and not paid salary for the month of May when the schools remain closed. The teachers worked three half days a week.
“We are now in the seventh year and the government has raised our salary by ₹2,700. We are now being paid ₹7,700. We want the government to absorb us as permanent staff. We were recruited under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan,” said K. Naveen, state treasurer of Part time Teachers Assocation.
The State Project Director of SSA held a meeting the protesting teachers on Monday afternoon, but the talks failed. “There is no use in us going to school for three and half days as we cannot teach much to the students. A government teacher with my qualification starts at ₹25,000 a month. We have decided to continue our strike and want the School Education Minister and the Chief Minister to intervene,” he said.