Government School Teachers Union Punjab on Monday wrote to the Punjab chief minister requesting him to set aside 30% of the state budget’s funds for education.
Union patron Charan Singh Sarabha, state president Surinder Kumar Puari, state general secretary Gurpreet Singh Mari Megha, senior vice-president Praveen Kumar advisor Balkar Valtoha, finance secretary Naveen Sachdeva, district president Parminderpal Singh Kalia, press secretary Tehal Singh Sarabha among others sent emails to the state government requesting proper allocation of funds for education in the state budget.
Union leaders said the organisation demanded that 30% of the total annual state budget should be reserved for the education sector as was adopted by the Indian Lok Sabha when formulating the National Education Policy, 1968.
The union also demanded that 70% of the budget allocated for education be earmarked for school education.
The leaders said that in the last 15-20 years, successive state governments have made several cuts in the education budget and that resulted in a large number of vacancies for teachers and support staff in government schools.
Speaking of the same, Tehal Singh said, “There are thousands of teachers who are working on contract and their wages are much lower than the fixed regular wages. Apart from this, the darsh Model, Meritorious Schools in the school education budget have been robbed of massive funds under the private participation system.”.
The union further requested the regularisation of all contract teachers and volunteers, computer teachers and outsourced teachers with full salary and perks.
Detailing some of the demands, Sarabha said, “The old pension scheme should be revived by cancelling the new contributory pension scheme, thousands of vacancies in schools should be filled immediately through regular recruitment and the open model, meritorious schools in Punjab should be merged with the staff in the education department so that through the common school system in Punjab all the students could get equal and equal educational opportunities.”
Tehal Singh, meanwhile, added that in order to strengthen the common school system, five teachers for as many primary school classes and regular subject-wise teachers in secondary education needed to be appointed.
