The Federation of Higher Secondary Teachers’ Association (FHSTA) has decided to organise strong protests against integration of various school sections in the State into a single directorate.
An FHSTA convention in Ernakulam announced a series of protests against the merger planned by the General Education department on the basis of the M.A. Khader committee’s first part and the unreleased second part and the report by a core committee of experts.
The FHSTA, in a statement, said if the report were to be implemented for the unification into a single directorate, it would affect students attending public schools the most. Failure to provide quality education and one that allows them to study subjects they have an interest in has resulted in many students leaving the public school sector. The merger would also lead to loss of teacher posts in high school and higher secondary sections. Instead of special consideration for the higher secondary sector that is the stepping stone for higher education, there were attempts to destroy it. This would be resisted strongly, the FHSTA said.
School-level publicity against the merger would be held from February 26, and a protest day held in schools on February 29. Corner meetings with participation from political and cultural leaders would be held in all 140 Assembly constituencies in the second week of March. Protests would be held in valuation camps from April 1. Protest meetings would be held in April 4. A vehicle rally would be taken out by the federation State leaders from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram in June and a mass rally of higher secondary teachers to the Assembly in July, the statement said.
