Junior college contract lecturers in strike mod

HYDERABAD: A day before the Intermediate (Class XI and XII) practical examinations were to being in the state, government junior college contract lecturers staged a dharna and launched a relay hunger strike here on Thursday demanding job security with time-scale.The Board of Intermediate Education has already announced the schedule for practical and theory examinations for Class XI and XII students. The practicals will be held from February 3 to 25 and the theory examinations from March 2 to 21.Contract lecturers, who were assigned the invigilation job, are boycotting the exams and participating in the strike. M Subrahmanyam, secretary, Board of Intermediate Education, said they asked all district collectors and educational officers to take private junior college lecturers’ help to conduct the practical and theory examinations without fail.” The board also sought police security at all the examination centres, he said.Speaking to newsmen at the dharna site, M Srinivasa Reddy, president of AP Government Colleges Contract Lecturers’s Association, said, “Minister for secondary education K Parthasarathy had said in November last year that the government would provide job security with time scale to contract lecturers who have more than five years of experience.” But now, when they recently approached the minister for orders, they were given a negative answer, he said.That was the reason for Hyderabad district government junior college contract lecturers to launch a relay hunger strike at Indira Park here and at district collectorates and district educational offices in other districts, he said.Educationist and MLC Chukka Ramaiah inaugurated the dharma and extended his support to the agitating teachers.Many contract lecturers of junior and degree colleges said they were not eligible to appear for recruitment tests under the new notification for recruitment of junior and degree college lecturers because of age bar. “Though the government announced a good number of posts, we cannot write the examinations,” said R Narayan. Swamy, a contract lecturer in mathematics. “I have been working for nine years as a contract lecturer. If the government does not regularise my job, where have to go?’’ he asked.