Tamil Nadu: Elementary Teachers Defer Secretariat Protest After Talks

 Chennai: Elementary School teachers, who had threatened to lay a siege of the State Secretariat on September 30 and October 1 to press for their long pending demands relating to their professional prospects and financial benefits, deferred the protest after the State Minister for School Education, Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi held talks with their union leaders on Monday.

The Tamil Nadu Elementary School Teachers Organisation Joint Action Committee (TETO-JAC) president Kamaraj told the media after the meeting that the union had been organizing a series of protests for quite some time demanding central pay scale for its members and the abolition of GO 243 that affects their promotions, among other things.

Since the members and leaders of the unions were not satisfied with the government’s response, they called for the siege of the secretariat, following which the government invited them for talks with the Minister. School Education Secretary S Madhumathi and School Education Director S Kannappan were among the officials who took part in the talks.

The union leaders were told by the Minister that Chief Minister M K Stalin, at whose behest they were invited for negotiations, would be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 27 at New Delhi and placing the demand for release of funds meant for the education department.

After that the government would take a call on the long-pending demands of TETCO-JAC and address their concerns relating to their professional growth and financial needs. TETCO-JAC that includes the Tamil Nadu Primary School Teachers’ Federation had been opposing GO 243 since it changed the promotion process for primary school teachers from the panchayat union level to the State level.

Among their other demands are the reintroduction of the old pension scheme and revision of pay scales to match the scales of the Union Government. Though TETO-JAC had earlier had a longer list of 31 demands when they started their agitation, the government agreed to look into some of them in earlier occasions.

But since some of the key demands remained unaddressed; they called for the siege of the Secretariat that they have now put off in view of the requests from the government and also the assurance given to them that the Chief Minister would take a call on it after meeting the Prime Minister.

Leaders of the union said that their demands concerned over one lakh elementary school teachers in the State.