Christian missionary schools have threatened to launch an “indefinite agitation” following the government’s rejection of their two key demands related to recruitment.

The schools had demanded that they be exempted from the government’s reservation policy and that they be allowed to test a candidate’s understanding of the missionary ideology before recruiting him or her.

“We will not accept the government’s decision,” asserted Herod Mullick, the general secretary of Bangiya Christiya Pariseba, a forum of Christian missionary bodies.

The government has stated its stand in the draft recruitment guidelines for aided and unaided missionary schools. The draft will be sent to the schools on January 10.

Based on the feedback from the institutions, the guidelines will be finalised.

“We will wait till January 10 and will launch an agitation if the draft guidelines are not in tune with our demands. The agitation will continue till our demands are met,” said Mullick.

The schools are unwilling to follow the reservation policy on the grounds that it often becomes difficult to find suitable candidates from the SC and ST categories. “Several posts remain vacant because of non-availability of suitable candidates, resulting in disruption in both academic and non-academic activities,” said an official associated with a missionary school.

The education department, however, has ruled out accepting the demand. “It cannot be met. There is an central order on reservation of posts in all types of schools,’ said Sukumar Mahapatra, the joint secretary in the school education department.

The schools had demanded that of the 55 marks in the recruitment test, 10 be kept for viva, during which they would like to ascertain whether a candidate is aware of the missionary ideology. Of the remaining marks, they had demanded that 30 be kept for the candidates’ academic qualifications and 15 for class demonstrations.

But the government wants viva to be of five marks. “The schools need to establish that the marks distribution they are demanding will be more effective,” said an official.