The Jharkhand government finally regularised the service of 63,000 parateachers who had been demanding it for a long time.
“The parateachers are extremely happy that the state government kept its earlier promise and finally decided to regularise our service,” said Sanjay Kumar Dubey, a leader of the Ekikrit Para Sikshak Sangharsh Morcha that had being pursuing their demand for nearly two decades.
“We are thankful to both chief minister Hemant Soren and education minister Jagarnath Mahto that they also agreed to meet most of our other demands yesterday,” added another leader Hrishikesh Pathak, referring to the decision taken at the meeting of the state cabinet on Wednesday evening that approved 51 various proposals including regularisation of their service.
As per the cabinet decision, parateachers would now be called sahayak adhyapak and given an immediate hike in their remuneration, effective from the current month itself.
Those parateachers who had cleared teachers eligibility test (TET) and teaching the students of Classes VI to VIII would now get a monthly remuneration of Rs 22,500 while those teaching the students of Classes 1 to V would get Rs 21,000. Those who were trained but did not clear TET would get remuneration of Rs 18,200 and Rs 16,800 in those categories respectively.
The immediate hike in their remuneration is about 50 per cent in case of those who cleared TET and 40 per cent for those who did not.
Those who did not clear TET would however also get the same hike as those who cleared it after they get through an assessment test with 40 per cent score.
The parateachers would also get other benefits such as service up to the age of 60 years and an increment of 4 per cent every year.
They would also get medical and other leaves and, in case of death, their dependents would also be absorbed as parateachers.
“Almost everything have been given but we would be happier if they gave us a regular pay-scale,” Dubey said but Pathak opined it was almost equivalent to a pay-scale as it assured an annual increment.
The state government had recruited parateachers in 2000 when teaching was suffering in junior government schools for want of adequate number of teachers and offered them a consolidated monthly remuneration.
Those parateachers started demanding regularisation of their service after four years and resorted to agitation when their demands were not met.
They held centralised demonstrations with renewed vigour at certain intervals in Ranchi that grew stronger with passage of time and also faced opposition from law enforcing agencies of the state.
The parateachers, during one such demonstration in Ranchi in November 2018 when the BJP government led by Raghubar Das was in power faced severe lathi charge by police.
Hemant Soren, then in opposition, had assured to solve their problem if he came to power. But when nothing was done after about a year the parateachers from across the state again demonstrated for five consecutive days near the state assembly in March last year.
Though education minister Mahto promised he would solve their problem at the earliest, the minister was hospitalised in Chennai for a long time as he had developed post-Covid complications and had to go for lung transplant there.
Mahto, after his return, assured parateachers that their problem would be addressed the same way it was done in Bihar and eventually the cabinet approved regularisation of their service on Wednesday evening.
