Cabinet OK’s policy allowing school guest teachers to work till 60 yrs, L-G to take final call

The Delhi Cabinet on Wednesday passed a policy to extend and allow the guest teachers to work till the age of retirement (60 years old) same as the permanent teachers. However, the policy will be implemented only after Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal approves it.

Currently there are 64,000 teachers in the Delhi Government schools out of which 22,000 are working as guest teachers on contract basis. Further, these teachers are protesting for past one week in front of Deputy CM Sisodia, demanding to extend the term of contract teachers which has been expired on February 28. After that the teachers are not allowed to work.

“We create the school, infrastructure and other facility but we do not have right to hire and appoint teachers. This is our constitution and the main reason behind the loss of thousands of teacher’s jobs is the BJP-ruled Central Government,” said Sisodia.

“L-G who is head of the Services, is not only responsible for transfers and postings of the teachers, but he should also regularise these teachers from Ad-hocism as the adhoc-guest teacher list is increasing every year. Now, the centre have to pass the policy for the beneficial of teachers otherwise students education will be effected as the new session will start from April,” added the Deputy CM.

“Out of the 64,000 posts of teachers in the Delhi Government schools, 58,000 are functional and comprise both regular and guest teachers. Thus, the 22,000 of these 58,000 were guest teachers, recruited on the basis of merit from time to time through vacancy notifications during our time and before. Before the current Government, the teachers were freshly appointed every year but we stopped the practice and extended their terms to stop the hassle they had to face every year.”

Blaming the BJP Government, Sisodia said the AAP Government protected the guest teacher, increased their salary and other improvement till they could but now since the services was with the Central Government and teachers and their recruitment also came under it. However, we passed the policy and will request the LG to approve it to save the thousands of jobs.

“Through the wrong interpretation of the Constitution, the Centre, through the LG, captured the Services matter in Delhi... How will we run our schools like this? Moreover, the Haryana Government has the policy where one cannot remove the guest teachers till her age of retirement. If this policy can happen in BJP-ruled Haryana then why not Delhi? LG can do it in less than a minute,” he said.

Sisodia said for two years, he had been saying that the guest teachers should be made permanent. “The BJP at the Centre wants to make the Education Department dysfunctional,” he alleged.