CHENNAI: Despite multiple talks with officials and demands being ignored, and warnings and arrests by the city police, the government school teachers have continued their indefinite protest. While the Secondary Grade Teachers (SGTs) enter the 25th day of protest on Sunday, the part-time teachers enter the 11th day of demonstration. The SGTs protest demanding 'equal pay for equal work', and part-time teachers ask for regularisation.
These demands from the teachers' association are not new; they have been ignored by both the AIADMK and DMK parties in power, with little to no intervention for several years.
"We will continue the protest. Although we were called for a discussion with higher officials, we want the TN government to fulfil the promise it made during the 2021 election campaign. Give 20,000 SGTs their rightful salaries," said a teacher protesting on Saturday.
Regardless of the 'loss of pay' warning by the Directorate of Elementary Education, teachers across the state continued their protest in Chennai and in other district headquarters.
Simultaneously, part-time teachers have been demanding regularisation after being employed by the AIADMK government for meagre Rs 5,000 in 2012. On Wednesday, Minister of School Education Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi increased the salary by Rs 2,500, increasing the overall monthly pay to Rs 15,000. The part-time teachers have expressed dissatisfaction.
"We have not been protesting for a Rs 2,500 hike. We want regularisation. The family of the physical education teacher who died consuming poison during a protest must be rightfully compensated,"said S Senthil Kumar, state coordinator of TN Part-time Teachers' Federation.
The primary demand of SGT rose after the pay disparity faced by teachers appointed after June 2009, of Rs 3,170 for the same amount of work as those appointed on or before May 31, 2009, was brought to notice. The teachers also claim that in December 2022, these teachers were severely affected by the seventh pay commission, as the pay gap further widened.