Repentant teachers adopt ‘Japanese’ tactic

Karimnagar, Nov. 10: Following the failure of their 13-day strike, several teachers’ unions of the state have decided to opt for a ‘Japanese’ model agitation. As is well known, the Japanese model involves working harder to register your protest and not boycotting work as is the wont in the desi model of agitation. It is the Andhra Pradesh Teachers Federation, the Democratic Teachers Federation and the Telugu Nadu Upadyaya Sangham which is giving the lead to this campaign to express their dissatisfaction with the way the Joint Action Committee of Teachers’ Organisations conducted the recent agitation. They also seem to a trifle guilty about the way the strike disrupted classes of students for two weeks. The unions are now motivating teachers to work on Sundays and other holidays to compensate for the lost days. They are sore at Jacto for calling off the strike arbitrarily without achieving the main demands such as the unified service rules and a solution to the problems of apprentice teachers. The strike by more than 10,000 teachers paralysed about 2,900 government, zilla parishad and aided schools but also deprived poor students of the mid-day meal. Many teachers feel that the strike sullied the image of government schools before the general public. "We have decided to work even on Sundays to compensate the loss of working days," said the APTF district president, Mr M. Pratap Reddy, who is also the headmaster at the Karimpeta Government High School in Shankarapatnam. Parents are happy about this. "It is a very good initiative from teachers and this will help improve the image of the government schools and the pass percentage as well," said Mr Vanaparthi Mallaiah, a parent.