The Federation of Government College Teachers’ Associations (FEGOCTA) on Tuesday said it would boycott online classes of government colleges in Manipur starting July if the state government failed to issue an order on the UGC 7th Pay Commission Recommendations before June end.
Since June 14, FEGOCTA, the apex body of the government college teachers in Manipur, has been conducting online classes in full swing and the teachers have been working from home and spending three to eight hours in a day, the convenor of media and publicity committee FEGOCTA said in a release.
It stated that the online lectures of sixth, forth and second semesters of BA and BSc with notes are available on FEGOCTA website "www.fegocta.org" and can be seen on YouTube also.
The Higher Education department, however, has failed to honour and implement MOU of March 6, the cabinet approval of March 27 and assurances given by the chief minister and education minister in the Manipur Legislative Assembly on February 9 regarding the implementation of UGC 7th Pay, the FEGOCTA stated.
"The college teachers are in triple shock due to Covid-19 pandemic, repeated betrayals since 2019 and discrimination. For over 10 years, the government college teachers have been deprived of complete salary. Before Covid-19, the benefits of 7th pay were already extended to college teachers in other states of India and other state government employees," the FEGOCTA mentioned.
Demanding the government to issue the orders of the UGC 7th Pay and Regulations latest by June 30, it stated, "In the event of the failure to issue orders by this date, the government college teachers including those in DM University may resort to boycotting of online classes and examinations."
In the case of any unfortunate disturbances on the online classes and examinations after June 30, FEGOCTA insists that the Higher Education department should take sole responsibility.
Stating that the decisions of boycotting online classes were taken in an online executive committee meeting of FEGOCTA held on June 20, it added that the federation, has submitted a memorandum on it to the education minister, the chief secretary, the secretary to the chief minister and the state commissioner of Higher Education.
