Bhubaneswar, Feb. 11: Thousands of schoolteachers from across the state today demonstrated in front of the Assembly, demanding regularisation of their service and a minimum basic pay.

The teachers threatened to call for an "Odisha bandh" if their demands were not fulfilled within a stipulated timeframe.

While the teachers staged the demonstration outside the Assembly, the House discussed the issue of large-scale vacancies in primary and upper primary schools in the state through an adjournment motion. A teacher is running nearly 4,000 primary schools each, and there are over 35,000 vacancies.

Congress chief whip Tara Prasad Bahinipati said: "The state government is playing with the students' future. Immediate steps should be taken to recruit teachers. Those, who are working on an ad hoc basis, should be regularised. The vacancies have hit the education system as students have started leaving schools midway."

School and mass education minister Debi Parasad Mishra said: "Under the Right To Education (RTE) programme, steps are being taken to fill the vacancies in the teachers' cadres. While the state's requirement is 2,24,330 teachers, at present, 1,89,569 teachers are working. Steps are being taken to fill up 16,601 posts."

The minister said that in the secondary education schools,29,291 teachers were working against the requirement of 39,245. "We are initiating steps to fill up 5,634 posts," he said, adding that the retired teachers had been engaged under the "Teacher on Call" scheme. Besides, he said efforts were on to increase the number of trained teachers in the state. The seats in the BEd and Certified Training have been increased to 1,628 and 6,400, respectively.

However, the teachers, who were staging the demonstration, said that though they had been working for the past 25 years, they were yet to be given due recognition. "All the 26,000 para-teachers should be regularised shortly, and all the eligible schools should be given the grants. The retired teachers should also be given the retirement benefit immediately," said chief convener of the School Teachers' Federation Prakash Chandra Mohanty.