The Tamil Nadu School Education Department today informed the Madras High Court that teachers in government and government aided schools cannot be prohibited from forming unions.
The department submitted this while replying to some queries posed by the court earlier including why it cannot prohibit teachers from starting unions or associations as erring teachers reportedly use them to prevent action against them.
Taking note of the steady decline in education quality and student strength in government schools, the court had on June 27 posed 20 queries to the department.
Erring teachers reportedly use unions to prevent action against them, "especially when education is a fundamental right and the future of the students are shaped by the teachers", Justice Kirubakaran had observed then, considering a batch of petition by various private educational institutions challengingthe orders of government rejecting their plea for starting English medium sections.
The department in its counter said today that as organised teaching personnel are part of a civil society under employment, comparable to other professions with safeguards that are available to other organised work forces, teachers cannot be denied form union.
Otherwise it would amount to discrimination, it said.
To the query why government school teachers were admitting their wards in private schools when a mandatory order was there directing them to admit only in government schools, the counter said that a teacher was also a parent in all respects and has the right to exercise his or her freewill in terms of choice of school for his or her ward.
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