Telangana: Spouse teachers of gov't schools protest seeking allocation in same district

Hundreds of government school teachers from across Telangana are holding a silent protest in front of the Directorate of School Education in Hyderabad today, January 21. Organised by the Telangana Spouse Forum, the protest highlights the demand for allocating posts to teacher couples in the same district.

A statement from the forum explains that in Telangana, the process of allotment of teachers to districts was done in December 2021 as per the Presidential Orders 2018. With respect to this allotment, the state government made it clear that the teachers who are husband and wife should be allotted posts in districts of their choice as per Circular Memo Number 1655.

"The GO further states that teacher spouses should be allotted posts first, and then all the other teachers. The order was followed for 19 districts but the other 13 districts were left out. This has now resulted in teacher couples being separated," said Vivek S, President of the Telangana Spouse Forum, who is also a government school teacher. He adds that due to such allotments, teachers are having to travel far for work.

Explaining the situation further...
"In one particular instance, the husband has been posted in the Mahabubabad district, while the wife is posted in the Rangareddy district. She has to travel 300 km daily. Likewise, there are about 2,100 victims. Many of them have children and the difficulty of the situation is intensified," Vivek said further.

According to him, the spouse forum has been approaching the government to intervene and resolve the matter since last year when the allocations were announced, but nothing has been done yet. Moreover, the Telangana government is soon to initiate the long-pending promotions and transfers of school teachers and only 615 out of the 2,100 affected teachers are being permitted to opt for transfers, according to the forum's statement.

Additionally, the teachers are unhappy that only a few categories of teachers are being allowed to apply for transfers, while most others are left out. They also mention that many posts will be vacant after the promotions and transfers are processed. Therefore, they want the government to reconsider the requests of all the spouse teachers. However, there has been no positive response from the authorities.

Police arrive on the scene...
Thus, came the decision to hold a protest, which started at 12 noon today. As per the forum's statement, the teachers have gathered along with their families, and were trying to peacefully brief the DSE authorities about their problems. However, police cracked down upon the protesters at about 1:15 pm.

Vivek informs that about 500 teachers were arrested along with their families, including children, and taken to the Nampally Police Station in the city, while about 300 teachers are still on the site, carrying on with the protest. In videos shared by the Forum President, teachers can be seen pleading with police officials. "We will continue our protest till the government considers our demands and teachers get justice," he states.