For thousands of guest teachers rendering their services in various schools, colleges and universities, this time Teachers’ Day lacks euphoria as their long-pending demands are yet to be fulfilled by the State Government. Despite tall claims and impressive promises by both Congress and BJP governments, their demands of job security, honorarium and regularisation etc. have not been addressed. In schools, the guest faculty are known as ‘Atithi Shikshak’ and in colleges they are titled with ‘Atithi Vidwan’. It was announced that honorarium of guest teachers will be increased and will be paid on monthly basis. Talking to ‘The Hitavada’, Dev Raj Singh, President of Atithi Vidwan Mahasangh, said “in most of the Government universities in the State, guest teachers are core since there is acute shortage of regular faculties. For several years they are teaching at several institutes but none of them have been regularise”. Notably, in September 2023, the then Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Higher Education Minister Dr Mohan Yadav had given assurance that none of the guest teacher’s services will be called off.

 

They will be regularise. But in practice, those announcement have not been fulfilled so far. Atithi Shikshak Mahasangh’s Ravikant Gupta said that we were given assurance that the annual contract will be signed by guest teachers, the reservation for guest teachers in teacher recruitment would now be 50%. There are more than 70 thousand such teachers in the state and they feel left out with promises and now planning to protest on September 10. Most of the teachers feel that BJP and Congress are trading charges on each other in our matter. It was Jyotiradiya Scindia when he was in Congress and threatened to join the protest of guest teachers against the then Kamal Nath government in 2019 if their demand to regularise services is not fulfilled. After Shivraj Singh Chouhan led government was formed and last year Mahapanchayat was called by then CM Chouhan and Higher Education Minister Dr Yadav none of the promises made during that panchayat have been fulfilled.

 

 

State-level teachers’ felicitation postponed The State-level Teachers’ Felicitation Ceremony-2024 to be held on the occasion of Teachers’ Day on Thursday at RCVP Noronha Academy of Administration and Management, Bhopal, has been postponed due to unavoidable reasons. This information has been given by the Directorate of Public Instruction, Bhopal.