Many teachers injured in police baton-charge in Patna

Patna, July 10 (ANI): A violent protest by thousands of temporary teachers, demanding regularisation of their services, caused serious injuries to many protesters and policemen here on Friday.

In a bid to control the situation, police baton-charged the protestors and also used tear gas shells to disperse the crowd.

The 1.75-lakh temporary teachers, who were hired by Nitish Kumar Government in 2006 to plug the huge demand gap in the number of primary school teachers, are demanding to be regularised on par with the regular government teachers.

In fact, the state had agreed to their demand on a condition that all teachers would have to pass (45 per cent marks) in an eligibility test, before they are regularised by the government.

However, the teachers are challenging the Bihar Government's condition by saying that the test was not mentioned when they were hired as panchayati teachers.

The rules only provided that there would be evaluation of the panchayat teachers' performance after three years of their service and there was no mention of holding a competency test, they said.

The teachers have moved the Patna High Court against the Government plan to conduct competency test.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, in his statement in the state Assembly on Friday, has refused to budge to the demands of the teachers, by saying that they'll have to go trough the competency test as per the government rules. (ANI)