Polls ahead: Non-teaching, teaching staff of schools threaten to boycott election duty

The Maharashtra Permanent Unaided Schools Association (MPUSA), a body of school teaching and non-teaching staff across the state, has demanded grant to unaided schools and full salary to all teachers before assigning them election duty.

AN ASSOCIATION of teaching and non-teaching staff has issued a warning that they will boycott election duty even as the state education department has started collecting primary data of school employees, who can be deployed for the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections.

The Maharashtra Permanent Unaided Schools Association (MPUSA), a body of school teaching and non-teaching staff across the state, has demanded grant to unaided schools and full salary to all teachers before assigning them election duty.

“The school department is required to make all unaided schools as aided after five years. But this has stopped for the past 19 years on grounds that the government doesn’t have enough funds. We have held 152 agitations to demand justice on the issue, but it has fallen on deaf ears,” said Prashant Redij, president, MPUSA.

While there are 6,000 state government schools in Maharashtra, only 1,750 schools get aid. Moreover, most teachers were getting 20 per cent of their salary and others did not get any salary at all and were being forced to teach for free, Redij said.

The association has appealed to principals of all schools to refrain from sharing the list of staff members. The association last protested on this issue from June 15 to 23 at Azad Maidan.

Once the code of conduct kicked in, the departments will not take any action in resolving the matter and it was difficult to run a household in a situation such as this, the association members said.

“If the government cannot grant primary, secondary and upper secondary schools in Marathi and regional languages their basic rights, why try to get this government and MLAs elected?” a statement by the association read.

When contacted, state education minister Ashish Shelar told The Indian Express, “The BJP government is the first to give grant to those schools entitled to it. It has given partial grant, not full. The earlier government has never given it. For the rest of the grant, the subcommittee of Cabinet is discussing the proposal and a decision will soon be taken.”

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