BENGALURU: Hundreds of lecturers under the banner of Karnataka Pre-University Lecturers Association (KPULA) staged a protest at Freedom Park on Thursday seeking fulfilment of their various demands including higher wages, staggered recovery of ex-gratia, promotions and redressal of workload. They intend to wear black badges as a sign of protest when PU-II examinations take place and also plan to boycott evaluation.
Association vice-president SR Venkatesh said, "They need to address the pay scale and promotion of lecturers. The state wants to recover ex-gratia of Rs 500 per month paid to us since 2008 in one go. This will be a burden on us and we have suggested they deduct it from our salaries every month. Teachers who have completed PhD, State Eligibility Test and National Eligibility Test (NET) should be promoted to degree colleges."
Filling up the posts of principals in 600 colleges and limiting the lecturer-class strength ratio to 1:40 as per NCERT guidelines are their other demands. "Wages recommended by Kumar Nayaka committee are not paid, increments promised in 2016 are also not given... The number of hours for subjects with practicals has been set at 24 per week which is inhuman," he said, adding that as per NCERT guidelines, colleges must have 20 hours of mathematics practical classes which is not followed, thereby affecting student’s grades.
However, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Suresh Kumar said in a Facebook post that the protest is politically motivated. “Association president Thimmaiah Purle will contest elections and is organising these protests through his political party. They are putting students’ future at stake and are not concerned about their well-being. They should have taken a more non-violent approach in their protest. Some demands are in the process of implementation,” he said.
“Counselling for promotion of teachers to the posts of principals will be done. The department has been instructed to disburse salaries and arrears on a timely basis. Within the framework of rules, compassionate workload and promotions will be implemented. I will not stand in the way of any rules which will benefit teachers,” he added.