BENGALURU: Government school teachers who are due for a compulsory transfer, have demanded on Tuesday that the exemptions made for couples working in government offices be scrapped. According to the commissioner of public instruction K G Jagadeesh, couples where both spouses hold permanent government posts, or work for public sector unions or nationalised banks, were exempt from transfers.
During this year’s transfers (which are transfers for the year 2017-18 that were delayed by a year), the department had identified 12,622 primary school teachers and 3,692 high school teachers to be compulsorily transferred out of their district or division respectively. However, Jagadeesh said as many as 3,675 teachers had sought exemptions under the said exemption provided to couples. “We are not asking for the transfers to be stopped, but how is it fair to transfer just a few helpless teachers while exempting a larger number of them,” said Madhura, a teacher from Bengaluru Urban.
As per the Teachers Transfer Act 2007, there were just two exemptions - one, for those who have more than 40 per cent disability, and the second, for those who are terminally ill said Madhura. She said that other exemptions were added over the years.
While the department is set to fill 10,000 vacancies for primary school teachers by mid-October, another teacher-Srikanth from Belgaum-said that the numbers were sufficient to fill up all vacancies in rural areas.
Another teacher Nagaratna alleged that the new appointees were appointed in urban areas as per their preferences.
Primary and Secondary Education Minister S Suresh Kumar acknowledged the plight of teachers who are above 50 years and were being compulsorily transfered. “Teachers ask me if it was their fault they did not marry someone who works for the government,” he said, while stating that a plan was on to rework compulsory transfer amendment in the coming academic year.Jagadeesh said the department weeded out 99% of ineligible requests of exemptions for couples. “Spouses whose partners were working in societies, and as LIC agents, had also applied and were deleted from the list of those exempted after much scrutiny,” he said.