Gujarat govt accepts demands of college teachers’ association

The news might come as respite to all the teachers in the state.

Finally after several rounds of negotiation with the state government, five demands of the Gujarat State Federation of University and College Teachers Association have been accepted.

The decision was taken at a recently held meeting between the heads of the association and education minister for state Raman Vora.

The demands include pension improvement as per new salary standards, number of students in practical batch in science colleges, teachers not being assigned extra-curricular work and speeding up the process of arrears payment.

The news has brought partial cheers among the college teachers, but they believe the fight is still on as the government is yet to give nod to five more demands of theirs.

The association has been negotiating with the state government for long to fulfill their 10 demands. President of the association, KS Shastri said efforts are still on to negotiate the rest of their demands.

"We will be happy when government agrees to all of our demands. Some unfulfilled demands include taking temporary and qualified teachers as permanent ones. There are some 370 such posts which are vacant in the universities and they should be filled up soon. Also the scale of PhD and MPhil students is not decided and government should pay heed to such issues to improve quality of education in the state," said Shastri.

Other fulfilled demands include speeding up the process for 700 teachers whose salary is pending in the Rs 37,400 per month bracket, hours of work in a day etc.