Tamil Nadu Higher Secondary School teachers staged a hunger strike at Salem Fort grounds today, Saturday, November 25, demanding to remove the parity in the pay scale of post-graduate teachers.

The hunger strike was conducted on behalf of the Tamil Nadu Higher Secondary School Postgraduate Teachers' Association, emphasising 10 demands including reducing the working hours for the teachers in the state to 2.30 pm, enacting a work safety law for teachers, demanding the cancellation of the XI Board examination, and equal pay for equal work.

More than two hundred teachers participated in this protest on Saturday which was led by the Teachers Association district president, a report by ANI said.

This is not the first such strike staged by the state’s teachers. In September, the Secondary Grade Seniority Teachers’ Association in Tamil Nadu staged a hunger strike after the talks with the school education department regarding equal pay for equal work failed.

Moreover, as per reports, the association members had staged a hunger strike in January, following which, Chief Minister MK Stalin had announced that the government would form a three-member committee, headed by the finance secretary (expenditure), with School Education Secretary Kakarla Usha and the then Elementary Education Director G Arivoli (present director of school education department) as members, to look into the issue.