Growing City

Strikes have increasingly become a nasty feature of our day to day life, paralysing the whole system and adversely affecting the common m...

Strikes have increasingly become a nasty feature of our day to day life, paralysing the whole system and adversely affecting the common man8217;s life. The teachers8217; strike has already entered the fourteenth day causing inconvenience to students. The doctors8217; strike, postal strike, transporters8217; strike and now the teachers8217; strike. The whole scenario is indeed bleak. It is very sad that to fulfill every demand, the aggrieved part has to resort to means like strikes and hartals.

Teaching is a selfless and dedicated profession. The task of the teacher is to nurture the tender thought, to teach, to inculcate fresh instruction, to guide and fix a generous purpose in the heart.

But at present, teachers are abstaining from teaching work in all city colleges and the University. This is in response to the nation wide call given by the All India Federation of University and College Teachers Union to protest against the failure of implementation of pay scales by the ministry of Human Resource and Development as announced by Union Grants Commission. Though the demand may be fair, the means adopted to achieve this is causing severe academic loss to students.

The strike began soon after admissions and the result is that new entrants have not been able to attend even a single class till date.

The teachers have also boycotted the re-valuation work. This directly hits students who have failed and expect to clear through re-valuation. There are also possibilities of cancellation of the mid-term tests conducted in September by colleges. A student is required to clear this test for eligibility for the final examinations. Another area likely to be affected is the zonal youth festival for which dates have already been fixed by the committee of youth affairs.

The stage is also set for direct elections to the Punjab University Campus Students Council in the second week of September following a green signal from the Chandigarh Administration. But these elections can be set in motion only after the strike is over. On the other hand, teachers8217; assure that they would take extra classes to compensate for the academic loss of the students. But it seems very impractical that the teachers will be able to compensate the loss of academics and extra-circular activities as the university functions only five days a week. The human mind is only human8217; and it will not be possible for students to handle the extra load.

The writer is a student of Mass Communication at Punjab University

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