Management, teachers of Ahmedabad school slapped with fine for staff's dharna over salary issue

Indian Express

3 days ago

Days after the staff of Diwan Ballubhai High School in Ahmedabad held a dharna on the campus of one of its schools, boycotting teaching work for a day over salary issues, the District Education Officer (DEO) on Thursday penalised the teachers as well as the management of the school.
While the management was handed out a penalty of Rs 10,000, the teachers would stand to lose a day's salary.
Citing the Right to Education Act (RTE) 2009 rules, Ahmedabad (city) DEO Rohit Chaudhary ordered the school management to deposit the fine within three days.
In separate orders issued by the DEO office pertaining to the school's two branches in Kankaria and Paldi, and both its Gujarati and English- medium schools, the teachers have been slapped with a penalty of unpaid one-day leave for not teaching students and going on a strike. The respective school principals have to inform the DEO office for implementation of this order within three days.
On August 11, nearly 100 teaching and non-teaching staff of Diwan Ballubhai High School in Maninagar and Paldi sat on a dharna on the Maninagar campus alleging discriminatory annual increment given to them last week. The DEO, Ahmedabad (city), issued show-cause notices to the teachers and management on the same day.
Citing violation of the RTE Act, DEO Chaudhary demanded a reply to the show-cause notices issued to teachers and management by Tuesday.
'Teachers quit their teaching work on salary increment issue and sat on a dharna without prior approval or intimation to this office. For their (the teachers') own interests, students had to suffer. Same goes with the management as to why they failed to resolve the issue and not discuss it with the DEO office,' DEO Chaudhary had earlier told The Indian Express.
Though the management, in its response to the show-cause notice, stated that the school has introduced a 'performance-based' increment process from this year, it was penalised for failing to resolve the issue.
Earlier, a flat increment used to be given to the staff of the school. This was replaced by performance-based evaluation from this year.