Over half of the teach­ers in the Gov­ern­ment pri­ma­ry school sys­tem did not re­port for work to­day.

Re­spond­ing to TTUTA’s call for teach­ers to take a day of rest to ex­press their frus­tra­tions with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Guardian Me­dia was told that around 55% of teach­ers in the Gov­ern­ment pri­ma­ry schools did not turn on their de­vices. Ab­sen­teeism was par­tic­u­lar­ly high in the South East­ern ed­u­ca­tion­al dis­trict (31% at­ten­dance).

TTUTA has said that they are fed up of the dis­re­spect and in­grat­i­tude shown to teach­ers by the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry on is­sues rang­ing from the re­turn to phys­i­cal school pol­i­cy, out­stand­ing salary ne­go­ti­a­tions and a lack of di­a­logue.

To­day the Move­ment for Con­cerned Par­ents said it stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the teach­ers as while to­day may be an in­con­ve­nience for stu­dents, it does not com­pare with the Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempt to seg­re­gate them. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has called a me­dia con­fer­ence at 2:30 pm to­day to ad­dress the ‘Phys­i­cal Re­open­ing of Schools for Forms 4-6’.

Re­porter: Akash Sama­roo