‘Process underway to regularise meritorious school teachers’

THESE TEACHERS WILL BE ENTITLED FOR ALL BENEFITS, INCLUDING GOVT HOLIDAYS AND MATERNITY LEAVE FOR FEMALE STAFF

JALANDHAR: THE teaching staff of 10 branches of meritorious schools will be regularised soon as the state education department has already initiated the process in this regard.

Confirming this, project director Maninder Singh Sarkaria said that the process is underway and a notice in this regard would be issued soon after the departments concerned, including Punjab public service commission, clear the file and sent it back to the department.

There are ten branches of meritorious school— at Bathinda , Amritsar, Jalandhar, Patiala, Ludhiana, Mohali, Ferozepur, Talwara (Hoshiarpur), Ghabdan (Sangrur) and Gurdaspur. These schools have around 240 teachers, who were recruited as contractual employees between 2014 and 2018, and are eligible for regularisation.

The move comes after continuous protest by the teachers and their willingness to receive the same salary being provided to teachers of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan. SSA and RSMA teachers are entitled for a monthly salary of ₹15,300.

Baljeet Singh, vice-president (V-P) of Meritorious Staff Union, Punjab, said that this is good that the government has finally decided to fulfill our long-pending demand of regularisation of jobs and teachers have agreed to accept the offer of ₹15,300 per month.

He said under the new understanding, these teachers will now be entitled for government holidays and all other benefits enjoyed by a regular government employee, including provision of maternity leave for female staff, he added.

A pet project of the previous SAD-BJP government, 10 special meritorious schools was set up in 2014 to make quality education available to bright students, who score 80% and above.

The aim of these schools was to address the financial burden of meritorious students. Under this, intelligent students from weaker section are provided accommodation, education, food and other facilities absolutely free of cost.

The schools enrol students after conducting a test, however, their performance was not up to the mark. .