Hundreds of special education teachers (SETs), who staged demonstration at the directorate of school education here on Friday, have demanded that the state government revoke the service termination order, wherein 316 SETs appointed since 2012 across the state were terminated during last week of June with a reason of being “untrained”.
SETs also demanded that no fresh appointment be made till the in-service SETs were absorbed and streamlined.
Prior to the termination order was issued, the SETs said they submitted a four-point memorandum demanding no fresh appointments, extension of SETs be given from February 2016, time for untrained SETs for in-service training and salary be equivalent to normal graduate teacher as per the guidelines of the Rehabilitation Council of India.
However, they said after holding meeting with the additional director DoSE, Wonthungo Tsopoe, mission director, Limawabang Aier, and other officials on Friday morning, the teachers have decided in the evening to put a separate/new demand for revocation of termination order and to demand that no fresh appointment be made till the in-service were absorbed and streamlined- since their memorandum did not justify the agitation they called for.
At the meeting, the aggrieved SETs informed the department officials that they were terminated with a reason of ‘untrained’. SETs said they were not even called once for training by the state government neither were they given the time to undergo training, besides there was no training institute for special education in the state. To acquire the training, SETs said a teacher has to go outside the state at their own expenses. Even then, SETs said more than 80 were currently undergoing training and more SETs were prepared to go for the same.
At the meeting, additional director, Tsopoe appealed to the SETs to suspend the agitation and also asked them to put fresh application with a concrete demand.
Mission director Aier assured that even as fresh recruitment takes place, those teachers servicing with sincerity would be absorbed. He said since the matter was under investigation, thereby the issue would be solved only after the SIT submits its report.
On March 11, during a joint meeting held at the congruence hall of the chief secretary, the meeting decided to extend the service of all the genuine SET till March 2016 with no further extension as none of the SETs were trained and that fresh appointment would be initiated through open advertisement by April 2016. The meeting also decided that as per SIT, vigilance and anti-corruption, SETs pending salary be released till March and thereafter their service will be terminated.
Subsequently, 360 SETs service was terminated on expiry of the extension, i.e March 2016.