Neeraja* was a Lower Division Clerk (LDC) when she began preparing for the Higher Secondary School teachers examination conducted by the Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC), the government recruiting agency for public offices. Teaching was her favourite profession and getting through the exam gave her a sense of achievement. Her career is uncertain now after the government sacked 67 Higher Secondary English teachers in the junior category in March this year.
The reason stated was that the teachers did not have adequate workload following staff fixation. The fate of the teachers remains uncertain as the government is yet to take a decision on their rahabilitation despite protest. The weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday, April 2, too did not take a favourable decision.
The Government Order, issued by the Director of Public Instruction, on March 31 said that 67 Higher Secondary School Teachers (HSST) are discharged for want of vacancies as per Kerala state and Subordinate Services Rules. It stated that the teachers will be reinstated depending on the regular vacancies for English teachers on seniority basis as they emerge. The order also read that while the 2022-23 academic year ends on March 31, the 110 (in total) supernumerary posts of the Higher secondary school teacher (junior) will cease to exist. The teachers who lost their jobs, however, feel that their reinstatement is an uncertain thing. The teachers staged a protest in front of the Secretariat, the administrative headquarters of the state, on Easter Sunday. In some districts protests are happening on Wednesday, April 12.
Some of the teachers, like Neeraja, quit the job they already had to become HSSTs and are staring at a bleak future. The teachers have to qualify the State Eligibility Test (SET), a qualifying exam, after getting graduate or postgraduate degrees in Education to become teachers. Cracking the PSC exam is yet another tough task due to the high number of candidates, competetive nature of the exam and low number of vacancies. None of those who got sacked never thought that they would lose the government job secured through the PSC for it is unprecedented.
“I can’t express in words what I feel now. I lost the job when I developed the feeling that I was standing on my own feet. I was working as a LDC and tried for the teacher job as that is my favourite profession. In the order the government said that they will reinstate us. Why would the government sack us if we had to be reinstated,” Neeraja told TNM. She joined the service in 2021 December and was working as a HSST in Kollam district.
Devika*, another teacher who got sacked, said that she felt frustrated and confused after losing the job. She became HSST in Thrissur district in August 2021. She was a teacher of the Lower Primary and Upper Primary classes before getting a job to the higher position. “Not that I did not have a job earlier. When the PSC invited applications for the post I applied and wrote the exam as I am qualified for it. I got selected to the higher secondary after a long wait,” Devika said. The Kerala School Teachers Association (KSTA) has demanded that the posts be protected as supernumerary without any service break and other benefits given to them.
“Not all the teachers who lost jobs are financially secured. We expected a government decision to revoke the order in the cabinet meetings held after the order came. Only a government order reinstating us with retrospective effect so that there won’t be any service break will releive us. Even the credibility of the PSC is being questioned now,” Devika said. Of the 67 teachers, 10 joined the service in January this year while the others by the end of 2021.
Rafeeq*, a teacher from Malappuram, said even if they are out for even a day that will be considered as a service break. “When we became aware of the possibility of job loss we had flagged the minister (Minister for Education V Sivankutty) and the officials concerned and their responses made us hopeful. There are so many like me who entered the service, quitting other jobs,” he said. The three teachers cited the precedent of the government creating supernumerary posts in 2017 to protect the aided school teachers who were about to lose jobs because of the fall in divisions in schools.
“The HSSTs are appointed either through promotion or through PSC. I was working as a High School teacher and quit the job when I received an appointment as HSST in August 2021. I was in the service for three and half years. The process of service regularisation (a final round of verification through PSC) was over and I was settling into the job. The probation period would have been over by August this year. It is said that we were sacked as per the Service Rules. But we are just 67 people and could have been reassigned,” he added.
Every year the government would assess the number of teachers needed for each subject in High School classes. “At the Higher Secondary level there is no issue of division fall as there are enough students. In the aided schools, when assessments were done scores of posts were found to be IN excess. The government protected employees by reassigning them to other jobs in government offices. Aided school teachers, who would have lost jobs were reassigned even to government schools, which is not usual as they are two different sectors,” he said.
The education department, however in a statement said that the government has been mulling various options to protect the teachers and that this is being considered by the Cabinet.
A statement from the minister V Sivankutty’s office, in response to a TNM query, said that since 2017, seven to 14 hours work load has been made compulsory for junior HSSTs.”There was one junior post for three periods in a week before 2017. It was in the 2021-22 academic year that post assessment for higher secondary was done. As per this, the workload was just enough for 87 posts in the total 337 English junior posts existed.”
According to the statement, advice memos were sent to 47 persons from the HSST junior rank lists in 2022. This was following the Supreme Court verdict in February 2022, based on a batch of petitions, against the PSC decision not to give validity benefits to rank lists that have received extensions till June 30, 2017. Of the 47 people to whom the advice memos were sent, only ten joined the service and the number of HSST junior English teachers were 154 in total. Of these 87 teachers have a workload of seven to 14 periods. Posts of the remaining teachers became redundant because of this.
The government could have followed other options than termination, he said. “But it seems the government did not care about it. It is shocking especially when done by a Left front government that advocates rights of employees. A PSC job gets through several rounds of attempts, after a long time of hard work and people opt for it because of the job security it gives. Now, even the security is in question,” he said.
Speaking to TNM, Abdul Jaleel Panakkad, state general secretary of the Kerala Higher Secondary Teachers Union (KHSTU), said this was the first time in the history of the state that teachers have been terminated from service for lack of vacancies. “The teachers are sacked in the name of lack of enough teaching periods (workload) for them. The workload for teachers is assessed by the Education Department but the decision on such files (like termination) is taken by the Finance Department. In the Service Rules a junior teacher is one whose teaching periods are less than 15 in a week. A senior teacher will have more than 15 teaching periods. The senior teachers usually will have more working periods than this, a junior teacher is appointed to take care of the extra hours. Now with the termination, the stand of the Finance Department is that the excess hours will also have to be taught by the senior teachers,” he said, adding that this will affect the quality of teaching.
(Names have been changed on request to protect anonymity)