Chennai Police arrested more than 5,000 teachers protesting at the Directorate of Public Instruction. They protesters are demanding teaching jobs in government schools.
More than 5000 teachers from across Tamil Nadu who staged a protest in Chennai were arrested on Thursday. (Laasya Shekhar/ South First)
V Revathi, 37, is one among many who have been detained by the Chennai Police at various community halls in the city.
The police have offered to drop them off at the nearest transit points so they could return home. The detainees rejected the offer.
On Wednesday, 4 October, Revathi and others were on an indefinite hunger strike, protesting against the government’s refusal to recruit them as teachers, even though they had cleared the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET).
She did not leave the protest site at the Directorate of Public Instruction office even for a washroom visit, fearing the police would take it as an opportunity to disperse them.
The next day, the police whisked them away to various community centres.
Revathi had cleared the TET with 85 out of the maximum 150 marks in 2013. She was hopeful of landing a teaching job in one of the government schools.
V Revathi, a post graduate, cleared TET in 2013. She is yet to be recruited by the Tamil Nadu government. (Supplied)
However, shattering the hopes of more than 24,000 eligible people like Revathi, the then AIADMK government introduced a weightage of 40 percent to academic performance in the board and degree exams. It came as a blow to Revathi, who had chosen the first group.
Compared to other groups such as arts and humanities, she claimed it was tough for those pursuing the first group to score high marks.
“It is unfair to consider the marks scored in the board exam as those who chose second and third groups could score more,” Revathi said. Since the weightage went against her, she was not hired as a second-grade teacher (to teach Class 1 to Class 5). The Tamil Nadu government did not hire more than 24,000 aspirants who cleared TET in 2013.
Those teaching aspirants have now taken up jobs such as tailoring, painting, and driving because working in private schools fetches them only peanuts.
“I worked at a private school. I slogged for more than 10 hours a day and was paid ₹4,500 a month. So, I quit,” Revathi, a post-graduate in Tamil, said.
She now helps her husband in the power loom sector. Together, they earn around ₹15,000 a month.
“If the government had hired me 10 years ago, our living conditions would have been better,” she said. People who were hired in 2013 are now earning around ₹40,000 as second-grade teachers in various government schools, those at the protest venue said.
To make ends meet, Revathi takes up every job that comes her way. She is overqualified for most of these jobs. “I work as a labourer under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and earn ₹200 a day,” she said.
Director of School Education G Arivoli held various rounds of talks with the protesters over the past nine days.
“The department is willing to hire the TET-qualified teachers on a temporary basis. It has been more than a decade since they qualified for the test and they cannot be hired as permanent teachers,” a senior official from the school education department, said on the condition of anonymity.
The aspiring teachers, however, are unhappy with the offer. “They could hire us for a lesser salary but we demand job security. We are willing to give a demo class to prove ourselves,” Minnal Ravi, organiser of the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) Passed the Candidates Welfare Association.
“There are 20,000 vacancies in the school education department. Why are they not hiring us for those posts? I enrolled myself in the employment office of Villupuram in 2011. In other states, TET seniority and Employment Seniority are considered for job recruitment, but not in Tamil Nadu,” Revathi said.
The AIADMK government in 2018 passed an order (GO 149) demanding the TET qualified teachers clear another eligibility exam to be considered for appointment.
The then opposition leader, MK Stalin challenged the order and promised to revoke it once the DMK came to power. On 7 May 2021, Stalin was sworn in as the chief minister.
“The DMK government claims to have fulfilled 99 percent of its election promises. It is false. It is disappointing that the government is ignoring our plight,” Kabilan Chinnaswamy, state president of, Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) Passed Candidates Welfare Association, said.
While TET-qualified teachers are demanding the government appoint them, two other groups of teachers are raising other demands.
Members of the Secondary Grade Seniority Teachers’ Association (SSTA) are seeking equal pay for equal work. “Teachers who were appointed on and after 1 June 2009 receive ₹ 3170 less than those who were appointed till 31 May the same year. The disparity between both these teachers is now more than ₹10,000,” SSTA general secretary J Robert said.
Another group of teachers on contract are demanding permanent jobs. “For the past 10 years, I have been working for ₹10,000 without a pay increase. We trusted Chief Minister MK Stalin to give us permanent postings. But more than two years after coming to power, the demand remains unfulfilled,” 50-year-old K Manimala, who works at the Perambalur Government Higher Secondary School, rued.
Announcing a slew of measures, School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi on Wednesday said that the monthly pay of 10,359 temporary teachers in the state would be increased from ₹10,000 to ₹12,500 along with the annual medical insurance coverage of ₹10 lakh.
Regarding the TET-qualified teachers, the minister said that the government would increase the upper age limit for employment to 53 and 58 for general and reservation categories, respectively. He said that a three-member committee will submit its recommendations in three months.
Meanwhile, teachers’ associations were not happy with these measures. Detained in the community halls across the city, teachers are not giving up their protest despite repeated appeals and threats by the Chennai police.
“The police said they would drop us at the nearby railway stations and bus stops to get to our native places. We do not want to quit now. We will continue the indefinite protest till our demands are met,” Robert said.
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