Chief minister Naveen Patnaik presents an award to a teacher at an event in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 5: The state government today honoured 67 teachers for their contributions in the field of education.

On the occasion of Teachers’ Day, 36 educationists were conferred awards for 2009 and 31 for 2010. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik gave away the awards to teachers as well as 110 students who were among the top 100 scorers in the 2012 High School Certificate (HSC) exam.

Teachers across the state, under the banner of the United Teachers’ and Employees’ Association, chose the occasion to air their grievances to the government. At a programme organised by the association, the teachers pressed for the establishment of an Elementary Education Board on the lines of the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) that could help improve the quality of education at the elementary level.

The teachers also demanded re-introduction of the Class VII board exams, which were stopped by the state government following implementation of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan.

“The move to abolish board exams has led to complacency among students as well as teachers, leading to deteriorating standards. The students have stopped taking exams seriously and are faring badly at matriculation exams,” said Pitabasa Jena, a teacher.

The teachers also demanded that suitable amendments be made to the BSE regulations so that the problem of headmasters in secondary schools could be solved.

Following the regulations made in 1977, headmasters appointed in 610 aided high schools, 854 high schools taken over by the government and 387 new government schools have been appointed as headmasters-in-charge.

“Even though our work includes the responsibility and risks taken by headmasters of any government school, we don’t have the designation nor the salary scale of our counterparts,” said Rabindra Kumar Panda, the headmaster in charge of a school in Bhadrak.

“Although the 854 headmasters-in-charge were made headmasters following a court case in 2003, the state government recently passed an order demoting them from headmaster scale to assistant teachers,” said president of the association Bikram Keshari Barma.

“The government should consider giving back the headmasters their previous posts,” he said.

The teachers also demanded abolition of block grant and revision of their retirement age to 60 in government schools and 62 in aided high schools. The memorandum submitted to the chief minister also included complaints about hiring untrained candidates for Hindi teachers’ posts and a demand for the regularisation of computer teaches, who have been working in secondary schools for a long time.

Speaking at the programme, the chief minister said: “The state government is taking steps to appoint regular teachers. Also, more importance will be laid on teacher training, which is an important requirement for education reforms.”