72,000 teachers to join hands in non-cooperation protest

The Maharashtra Federation Of Junior College Teachers' Organisation (MFJCTO) on Wednesday again threatened to launch a non-cooperation movement over the evaluation of answer sheets of the Class 12 board examinations and other demands."We have given ultimatum to the State Education Department to accept our demands within 10 days, or else we will start our non-cooperation movement by checking only one HSC answer paper per day instead of 25 to 30," said Anil Deshmukh, President of MFJCTO. Class 12 board exams are scheduled to start on February 28, while the first set of answer sheets for evaluation are expected to start arriving by March 3.The MFJCTO claimed 72,000 junior-college teachers would participate in the one-answer-sheet—a-day protest. It has already been organising jail bharo andolans across the state – calls for which were made by the Mumbai Regional Junior College Teachers Organisation (MRJCT) in January – and is now planning to intensify its efforts.The MRJCT had called for the jail bharo andolan if its demands, which the state education department had promised to fulfil last year, were not met.The body has demanded that those appointed to work in schools since 2012-13 should be regularised, shikshan sevak teachers should be given pay-scales as per state government rules, and that Class 12 science and mathematics examinations be conducted according to the old examination pattern. They have also asked that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) subject be given government aids, and such teachers given proper salary, besides separating the administrations of junior and undergraduate colleges.