Crucial meet today for vocational teachers

Teachers are entitled to higher payscale, but technical issues have come in the way.

Representatives of vocational teachers and officials of the vocational education department are holding a meeting for the first time on Friday over the contentious issue of pay scale. The teachers have been battling for the past seven years for selection grade pay stuck even for eligible teachers due to some technicalities.

"Tomorrow's meting is to chalk out recommendations and norms to help eligible teachers get selection grade pay scale which is topmost in the three-tier payscale system considered for teachers with no time-bound promotion system. They include pre-SSC (technical) teachers and junior college vocational teachers," said C A Ninale, Joint Director, Vocational Education and Training (Pune Region).

The meeting will be attended by Ninale, two district vocational education officials and three vocational education teachers, Yugal Rayalu (Nagpur), Jayant Bhabhe (Nashik) and Uma Dasari (Aurangabad).

"In tomorrow's meeting we will discuss ways to allow maximum teachers to get the benefit of selection grade pay without violating the MEPS Act, 1981 which governs pay of vocational education teachers," said Rayalu, who is the MVTA president

Vocational teachers, since they don't have a separate vocational board are currently governed by the school code. They come under the three-tier system of pay scale. At the time of joining they get tier-1 pay. After completing 12 years, they get senior grade pay and after 24 years, they are supposed to get selection grade pay. But as per government norms, 20% of teachers in a specific institute should get selection grade pay.

"Almost every institution has only three teachers in vocational courses and 20% of 3 comes to 0.6% to which selection grade criteria is not applicable.

Due to this and several other technicalities most teachers are stuck in senior grade even though they have completed 24 years and should get selection grade," said Rayalu.

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