Chennai: The Joint Action Council of Tamil Nadu Teachers Organisation (Jacto) on Monday threatened to boycott public exams and elections if the state government fails to hold talks about their 15-point charter of demands including salary on par with central government school teachers.
On Monday, over a lakh teachers, who boycotted work on the third and final day of the protests, got arrested across the state for staging demonstrations.
“Though we were protesting for several months, government hasn’t called us for talks. This demonstration is a major success as 1.5 lakh teachers have boycotted schools and joined protests,” said Sami. Sathyamoorthy, a high level committee member of Jacto.
The school education department officials told DC that 19,000 teachers (14 per cent ) from high and higher secondary schools and 75,000 teachers (51 per cent ) from primary and middle schools were absent on Monday.
After consulting with the government, action will be taken against protesting teachers, they said. “Jacto high level committee meeting will be held in Chennai this Friday or Saturday. After that we will announce the decision regarding the boycott of exams and elections,” said P. Ilangovan, state coordinator of Jacto.
“We will consult with other government employees’ organisations who are also protesting for various demands before announcing the boycott of the election,” he added.
About 1,000 teachers were arrested for trying to stage a road roko in Chennai apart from those who got arrested for staging demonstration at district headquarters.
The protesting teachers also want the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) to be scrapped and replaced with the old pension scheme and merging 50 percent of the dearness allowance in the salary and a special officer in government schools for implementing the welfare schemes.
