CHENNAI: Nearly 300 temporary assistant lecturers staged a protest in front of the Directorate of Technical Education (DoTE) office on Friday, against the move to terminate the services of 1,311 lecturers. Since 2019, they were working at polytechnic colleges and special institutions on a consolidated pay of Rs 15,000 per month.
Calling their termination unfair, they demanded a rollback of the decision. “Terminating us is unfair and unethical. It is too difficult to find another job now. We have a family to look after. The government should be a little considerate,” said K Padmanabhan, a protesting teacher. “Many of the teachers have Master’s degrees and completed B.Ed, but despite this, we have no jobs now. Our livelihood is affected,” said another teacher.
Meanwhile, BJP leader Karu Nagarajan also participated in the protest. “While the government can install a pen statue for Rs 84 crore, why can’t they allocate Rs 2 crore for them per month,” Nagarajan asked the government. “Why can’t the Dravidian model government fulfil the promises? It is fair to ask those who have already passed four examinations to write another exam,” questioned Nagarajan.
After unearthing a scam in the polytechnic lecturers’ recruitment test conducted in 2017, the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) cancelled the test. To fill the large-scale vacancies in the polytechnic colleges and special institutions, the then government recruited 1,311 temporary lecturers.
However, recently the TRB appointed 1,024 teachers for government polytechnic colleges after conducting a competitive exam, and accordingly, the DOTE asked all government polytechnic colleges to terminate services of the temporary teachers appointed in 2019.
New appointments
Recently, the TRB appointed 1,024 teachers for government polytechnic colleges and accordingly the DOTE asked all the government polytechnic colleges to terminate services of the temporary teachers appointed in 2019.