Eight years after their recruitment as part-time teachers in schools , the struggle of around 12,000 teachers to increase their monthly salary continue.
These part time teachers were recruited for teaching subjects like physical education, music, tailoring and horticulture and are given a monthly salary of ₹7,700.
In their bid to pressurise the government to revise the salary and to regularise their employmenttime, the teachers are individually sending letters to the Chief Minister, School Education Minister and various officials highlighting their demand.
In March 2018, to comply with the provisions of Right to Information Act, Tamil Nadu government recruited 16,549 part-time teachers for a salary of ₹5,000 per month. Their salary was partly funded by the Central government.
The salary was revised to ₹7,000 in 2014 and later to ₹7,700 in 2017 without any benefits like provident fund or other allowances.
According to the teachers, though more than 16,000 were recruited, only 12,000 are working at present because of retirements after crossing 58 years of age, resignations and deaths.
“We are supposed to work for three days a week. However, apart from teaching our subjects, a lot of other office work and even teaching of other subjects are given to us,” said a teacher in a Chennai-based school, requesting anonymity.
During the strike by Joint Action Council of Tamil Nadu Teachers’ Organisation - Government Employees’ Organisations (JACTTO-GEO), it was us who helped in running the schools, he points out.
The part-time teachers expressed disappointment that even in the recruitment of special teachers for arts, tailoring and other subjects through Teachers Recruitment Board, they were not given any preference.
C. Senthil Kumar, State coordinator, Tamil Nadu All Part Time Teachers’ Association, said that teachers recruited under the same scheme in neighbouring States like Andhra Pradesh are paid more than ₹14,000 per month. “We have to be paid at least the minimum wage of ₹18,000 eligible for skilled workers,” he demanded.