Teachers’ salary: HC dismisses government plea

The Kerala High Court on Friday dismissed a petition filed by the state government seeking three months more to take a final decision to hike the salary of teachers and ayahs in government pre-primary schools.

The court had earlier asked the state to increase the salary of teachers and ayahs working in government pre-primary schools to  Rs 5,000 from Rs 900 and to Rs 3,500 from Rs 600 respectively on an appeal filed by the Kerala Pre-primary Teachers’ and Ayahs’ Association.

The court said that it had already explained the need to implement its earlier judgment. The state government on Friday submitted before the court that the appointments made by parent-teacher associations (PTAs) are not statutory appointments and are not sanctioned posts. It is quite likely that every year the number of such posts can increase. The appointments are made overlooking government directions in this regard.

 The Director of Public Instructions submitted the details of teachers in five districts and said that time is needed to obtain the details of other districts. The government also plans to make it a policy decision. The state needs to examine whether there are adequate number of students in classes to justify the posts. The number of eligible posts based on the pupil-teacher ratio fixed by government is 1:30.  The state also said that the details of teachers are not available in any of the AEO and DEO offices, since the appointments of such teachers were made by PTAs.