THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A section of teachers of higher secondary schools in the state has called on Director of HSE P K Sudheer Babu seeking intervention in implementing the transfers which had allegedly been sabotaged by another section of teachers for the past several years. The teachers decided to meet the director after they staged a protest in front of the Directorate of Higher Secondary Education office on Saturday.
Around 100 teachers gathered in front of the office and staged a symbolic protest ‘Ilayittu, Oonilla’ placing banana leaves in front of them, asking for rice. According to Ajith Chandran (name changed), the symbolic protest was to seek the attention from the authorities to get things done in a swift manner.
“This is our second open protest from our side seeking the government’s intervention. We are at the receiving end for the past several years. Hence we have decided to meet the director. As the matter is under the consideration of the High Court, we have to wait for the verdict of the court. Hope, things will be resolved soon,” he said.
Two weeks ago, the government has filed an appeal in the High Court to challenge the stay order of Kerala Administrative Tribunal (KAT) in staying the transfer proceedings till August 31.
The court is expected to consider the case early next month.
The KAT has stayed the proceedings citing the provisional transfer list published by Department of Higher Secondary Education violated government orders in 2015 and 2016.
Earlier, there were allegations the transfer was not based on seniority but on priority grounds such as compassionate posting, physically handicapped, widows of armed forces’ personnel, spouse postings and even NRI postings.
Interestingly, many ‘ineligible’ teachers allegedly found a place in the list and have managed to reap the benefits of priority and compassionate posting for getting posted in their home or nearby districts.
The KAT order had said the HSE Department should stick to the limit of reservation in compassionate and priority posting at 30 per cent.