Promoted headteachers in government primary schools have protested against the ‘temporary’ pay scale allowed to them through a recent government order.
The order, issued on Thursday, sanctions scale of pay for lower and upper primary headteachers who had been given temporary promotion in 2021.
The headteachers say they have been allowed the temporary scale as per Rule 31(f) of the Kerala State and Subordinate Service Rules, 1958, pertaining to temporary promotion, though they had qualified the departmental tests for headteacher promotion and should be given permanent promotion. The government cited an interim order of the Kerala Administrative Tribunal (KAT) in June this year to fix the pay and sanction arrears recently.
The government, the headteachers allege, is treating those who have qualified the departmental tests for headteacher promotion and those yet to do so the same.
They point out that a majority of them have qualified the departmental tests for promotion as stipulated in a government order of 2018 as well as earlier rulings of the KAT and the High Court, and so there is no hurdle to regularising them.
However, the government is turning a blind eye to its own orders and court rulings in an attempt to deny them permanent promotion. It can sanction temporary scale to headteachers who are yet to qualify departmental tests but has done the same even for those who should be given permanent promotion.
As their promotion is temporary, their probation will not be declared. This will affect their future increments, unless the promotions are regularised. A number of test-qualified teachers who have retired or are set to retire will lose out on a good deal of money since their promotion has not been regularised, say the promoted headteachers.
The temporary promotions were sanctioned in 2021, but the government took two years to announce the scale of pay when it could have been done then itself. The government bid in 2021 to amend the Kerala Rights of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules, 2011, which makes clearing of department-level tests mandatory for promotion, was intended to relax the criteria for those above the age of 50, they allege. The KAT stay on this continues. In such a situation, how can scale of pay be allowed to those without the mandatory qualification, asks the promoted headteachers.
If clearing of departmental tests is mandatory for high school headmaster promotion, how can the government relax it for primary headteacher promotion, they ask.
A case has been filed in the KAT against the order, says the promoted headteachers.
