Leaders of various teachers’ associations have deplored the statements reportedly made against the unions by Revenue Minister Dharmana Prasada Rao.
In separate statements on Sunday, N. Venkateswarlu and K.S.S. Prasad, president and general secretary of the AP United Teachers’ Federation (UTF), and State president and general secretary of Andhra Pradesh Teachers’ Federation (APTF) Ch. Manjula and K. Bhanumurthy, demanded that the Minister withdraw his statements.
The UTF leaders said there was no truth in the Minister’s claim that the teachers’ unions always criticised the government. Referring to the oft-repeated government’s claim that it was pouring crores of rupees into the education sector, they said the teacher unions would feel happy if the initiatives bore fruit and students benefited by them.
They said the Minister should explain why the strength in the government schools was depleting despite the “best efforts” of the government. “Why does the State have over 12,000 single-teacher schools even today,” they asked.
They alleged irregularities in teacher transfers, and demanded an explanation from the Minister on the “failure of the government to pay salaries to teachers even after four months of their transfer.”
The APTF leaders took exception to the Minister’s allegation that teachers were reluctant to the face recognition mode of attendance as they were involved in real estate businesses, giving a miss to their classes.
Mr. Bhanumurthy questioned the failure of the department in taking action against the teachers who had been missing their duties to promote their personal businesses.
He said if there was any such case of teachers involved in a business, it was with the tacit support of the ruling party MLAs and other leaders, he said, adding that it was not fair to hurl allegations at the entire teaching fraternity for a few black sheep.
He said teachers were never against the use of attendance app, they only had been demanding that the government provide devices to schools for the purpose, he said.
