An order by the Director of General Education (DGE) in Kerala to reverse the promotion of a Higher Secondary female teacher in Kannur district has evoked opposition from teachers’ organisations, who allege that it was issued to accommodate a male teacher as principal of the school. The order issued on November 24 by the DGE said that Raveendran P, a teacher on deputation, has been promoted to the post of principal while reversing the promotion of a female teacher Nisha Lukose.
The Kerala Higher Secondary Teachers Union (KHSTU) has alleged that the order is unusual and unprecedented. Speaking to TNM, Panakkad Adbul Jaleel, state general secretary of the Union, said junior teachers are promoted as seniors through a government order (GO) by the secretary of education. “This is done through a gazette notification after being approved by the Governor. How can an officer (the DPI) issue an order bypassing the one of the secretary, who is a higher official. This is unusual and against the rules. In our knowledge, this is unprecedented too. Technically, she (Nisha) is still a senior teacher as she was appointed by a gazette notification. What happened here is that a teacher’s promotion was reversed after giving promotion to another teacher,” he said.
"There is no vacancy in order to accommodate all those who have been appointed as principals from Sociology. Hence, the junior-most needs to be reverted to the feeder category of HSST (junior) sociology," the order read. Nisha Lukose has also been transferred to Government HSS, Kokkur in Malappuram from Mathamangalam GHSS in Kannur.
“Promotions are given depending on the current available vacancies. If no vacancies are there, promotion of eligible teachers will be put on hold or will be done on a working arrangement. But it is never done by demoting someone. Instead, the newly promoted person would be accommodated with some other arrangement or will be accommodated when the next vacancy comes. In this case, the female teacher got promotion first and the teacher in question got promotion after that,” said Anil M George, state general secretary, HSSTA.
Stating that there was undue haste in issuing the order, Anil George added, “The principal’s post is a teaching post and only one post of sociology teacher was available in the school. So when Raveendran is appointed, there will be two sociology teachers including the female teacher. The female teacher was demoted and transferred to promote Raveendran as principal. This could have been avoided by transferring the female teacher to another school where there is a vacancy of principal. Instead, she has been demoted and transferred.”
Echoing the views of Anil Geoge, Adul Jaleel also said there was unnecessary haste in this instance. “There was unusual haste in appointing this teacher as principal which we suspect could be out of some political leniency. As per the gazette order, the female teacher has seniority. How can the director issue such an order when the gazette order is still valid?”
Minister for General Education V Sivankutty, in a press meet on Saturday, said that the news has been viewed with seriousness. “It will be examined if any violation of rules happened and we will proceed legally if anything needs to be done,” the minister said.