The State government had recently issued a directive on the teacher per class ratio reducing it to 1:2 from the present 1:5. Though the government's idea was to increase workload of the teachers, the implementation of the directive would have rendered nearly 12,000 recently recruited teachers jobless.

The education department had in fact collected details from every district education officer on the number of schools and teachers who would be discontinued. The directive had said that appointments made by the schools after 1994 would not be sanctioned. Earlier, even before the implementation of the directive, secondary teachers' association met many a time and gave a call to take to the streets to force the government to withdraw the directive. From asking teachers who were also members of the ruling BJP to resign from the party membership to participate in the rallies, the teachers have chalked out an elaborate agitational programme.

Bowing in to the pressure from the teaching community, whose strength exceeds 60,000, the government has decided to put on hold the directive's implementation. The announcement was made on Saturday evening by the education minister.

However, the announcement has not pleased the teachers who are not ready to settle for anything less than complete withdrawal of the directive. The proposed agitation is also expected to hit the admissions of students to Class 11 and also teaching work, that will be completely thrown out of gear once the strike begins.

Though the association's call to members asking them to resign from BJP's membership has not gone down well with many teachers, the association has decided to stick to it to put pressure on the government.

The teachers have also included their old demands like removal of disparities in wages, increasing the number of encashable leaves to 300 from 240, giving Ashram Shala teachers the benefits of the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations, protection to teachers appointed after June 30, 1998 and dearness allowance on par with the Central government employees.