Kathmandu, October 30:

The Temporary Teachers’ Struggle Committee today announced that it would lock out all the District Education Offices (DEOs) throughout the nation tomorrow and on Wednesday. Dinesh Thapa, general secretary of the committee, said that the next phase of protest programmes would be announced on Wednesday.

“We want to pressurise the government to meet our demands by locking out the DEOs and if the government failed to make efforts to meet our demands, we will close down all the government schools across the country,” said Thapa.

The temporary teachers today organised interaction programmes in different parts of the country. They are on a relay hunger strike since September 20 and they have been holding sit-in protests in front of all the DEOs since October 8. Their major demand is the re-appointment of the displaced temporary teachers and making all the temporary teachers permanent by following necessary procedures.

Yesterday, the teachers had served a 24-hour ultimatum to the government to meet their demands. Laba Prasad Tripathee, spokesperson at the Education Ministry, alleged that the temporary teachers were not ready to sit for talks to solve their problem. Citing technical problems, he said their demands could not be met unless a proposed bill on Nepal Act was passed by the House of Representatives.

According to the draft bill, temporary teachers who are on the job as of now will be made permanent and the rest (displaced teachers) would be given a chance to fight for

permanency. There are around 15,000 temporary teachers working in primary, lower-secondary and secondary schools throughout the country.