Tamil Nadu to pay June salary to part-time teachers

Chennai

At present, there are about 16,000 part-time teachers working in government and government-aided schools across the state with a consolidated salary of Rs 7,700 per month. All these teachers are working under Tamil Nadu’s Samagra Shiksha scheme. A senior official from the Directorate of School Education told DT Next on Monday that due to COVID-19 pandemic all the schools have been closed till further orders and hence the part-time instructors are not in a position to report for duty.

Stating that as per the appointment rule, part-time teachers will get salary only for the working days, the official said all the chief educational officers have been instructed to disburse salary for June month. “Distribution of salaries to these part-time teachers was to support their livelihood,” he said adding, “however, they have to compensate for their non-working days by coming to schools when they are fully operational as per the government instructions and orders after the COVID-19 pandemic are over.

The official said the government’s initiative would benefit about 16,500 teachers across the state, who work in various state-run schools. However, S Senthilkumar, State-coordinator of Tamil Nadu All Part-Time Teachers’ Association said that the government has not paid May month salaries to the part-time teachers. “The government has not paid May month salaries, which had put a lot of pressure on the teachers at this juncture,” he said adding the authorities were not giving any reason for the pay cut in May.

Stating that the state government had assured to regularise the job for the part-time instructors, Senthilkumr said “till now they have not made us permanent.”