Coimbatore
Parents, who came to drop their children off at the Panchayat Union Primary School in Anaimalai near Coimbatore on Moinday, got upset upon seeing the locked doors.
“There are just three teachers in the school, including the HM, for around 100 students. We come every day and wait for a while in front of the school in the hope that the teachers would arrive. But we have been left disappointed,” said a parent.
As the school remained shut on Monday, the parents became agitated and blocked the arterial Pollachi-Anamalai Road. They withdrew the protest after police arrived and held talks with them.
Elsewhere, a teacher from an aided school arrived but could not take lessons as the classrooms remained locked and its keys were in possession of the striking staff. Students were thus forced to return to their houses.
Sources said parents besieged the Devangapuram Government Middle School situated on Dharapuram Road in Tirupur district on Monday. They later blocked the road in protest as just two out of the seven teachers turned up for work. The school has a student strength of around 400. Anxious parents expressed their fears that the continuing protests may adversely affect the education of their children.
Parents of children studying at the Government Middle School in Periyayeepalayam blocked the road in Avinashi for over an hour, demanding the government’s intervention to resolve the issue and bring an end to the teachers’ protest.
In Erode district, parents joined by children studying in the Government Middle School at Perumalmalai squatted on the Erode-Bhavani Road. They claimed that the two temporary teachers, appointed to fill in for the regular teachers, too failed to turn up for duty.All the eight regular teachers in the school stayed away from work.
No let-up in protest in Vellore
The indefinite strike called by the JACTTO-GEO saw no let up in numbers in Vellore, despite the district education department officials claiming that many teachers were reporting for duty. Nearly 1,500 members staged a demonstration in front of the Collectorate here on Monday. They gave full vent to their demands by raising slogans against the government. Police, who were quiet spectators till then, arrested the agitators and shifted them to various marriage halls. DMK president M K Stalin, who planned to address the gathering near the Collectorate, arrived late as the protesters were arrested before his arrival. He then proceeded to the local DMK office, where he unveiled a portrait of former DMK district president Vijaya Shanker.
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