Incentive increments for vocational teachers

Incentive increments for vocational teachers

VELLORE: The State government has sanctioned incentive increments to vocational teachers for the higher qualifications acquired by them during their service, as given to other categories of teachers.

The relevant government order No.240 of the School Education Department, dated August 18, 2010, follows a recommendation by the Director of School Education in the wake of the orders issued by the Madras High Court directing the government to grant incentive increments to vocational teachers, in various cases filed by the vocational teachers. The Madras High Court has in its order numbers 6273-6276/2005, dated December 2, 2008, stated “the writ petitions are allowed with a direction to sanction eligible incentive increments to the petitioners for acquiring higher qualifications. Necessary orders shall be passed in favour of the petitioners within a period of six weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.”

As per the G.O., the Director of School Education has stated that while a pass in B.Ed. is a must for granting incentive increments to other categories of teachers, a pass in B.Ed. cannot be made conditional for eligibility for incentive increments for vocational teachers since B.Ed. is not insisted as a prescribed qualification for vocational teachers.

“However, vocational teachers who are eligible to pursue B.Ed. in various colleges and universities will be granted incentive increments only if they had acquired B.Ed. qualification. But, in the case of vocational teachers in engineering subjects who have an undergraduate (UG) degree or diploma, and who were not eligible for B.Ed., incentive increments can be granted if they had acquired a UG degree or postgraduate degree or diploma in the related subject.”

Vocational teachers in science, commerce and business who have acquired PG degrees in the related subjects would be given two advance increments as first incentive, and those who have M.Phil., Ph.D. or M.Ed. would get two more advance increments by way of second incentive.

In the case of engineering vocational teachers, those having UG engineering degrees or PG diploma in data processing (in the case of business machines and computer programming), or B.E. in Computer Science, Electronics and Communication Engineering or Electrical and Electronics Engineering, or B.Sc. computer science or one-year PG Diploma in Computer Applications (in the case of computer instructors) or DPT with one year practical experience (in the case of printing technology), DME with one year practical experience (in the case of auto mechanic) or DEE with one year practical experience (in the case of electrical motor rewinding) would get two advance increments for possessing PG Diploma, B.E. or M.E. as the case may be, and those having PG degrees, M.Phil. or Ph.D. would get two more advance increments.

The government has stated that the eligible vocational teachers could be given the incentive increments from the date of the G.O.

While welcoming the G.O., S.N. Janardhanan, State organising secretary of the Tamil Nadu Higher Secondary Vocational Commerce Teachers Association, has requested the government to make the incentive increments applicable from the date of regularisation of the services of the vocational teachers concerned or the date from which they were getting the monetary benefits for the regularised post, since many senior vocational teachers who had acquired the requisite qualifications even before 2008 and who have been promoted as PG assistants in the academic stream would not be able to get the benefit.

He wanted the incentive increments to be made applicable even to those who have acquired ‘cross major' higher qualifications, that is, in other subjects not related to the basic degree, on a par with other categories of teachers.

Source: The Hindu