A protest by contractual computer teachers over impending job losses led to a standoff with police near Bikash Bhavan in Salt Lake on Monday, with demonstrators blocked from reaching the state education department headquarters and later beginning a sit-in outside the building.
The teachers gathered at Karunamoyee and marched towards Bikash Bhavan to oppose termination letters issued before the Durga Puja period. According to the report by Sangbad Pratidin, the protest became tense when police stopped the march near its destination. Some demonstrators lay on the road, while there was also a scuffle between protesters and police. The area was subsequently cordoned off with barricades.
The protesters demanded that government officials meet them and respond to their concerns. Police appealed for restraint and warned that no one should take the law into their own hands, the report said.
The teachers are part of Phase 6 and Phase 7 of the ICT ঐক্য মঞ্চ programme, which together have 3,719 teachers, according to the report. They were appointed through agencies on a contractual basis. Their current contracts are due to end on September 30, shortly before the festival season.
The agency that appointed them has informed them that their contracts will not be renewed. One protester told Sangbad Pratidin that a fresh tender would be issued after the existing agreement ended, creating uncertainty over whether any of the current teachers would retain their jobs. The teachers said termination letters had already been issued.
The dispute is centred on the use of intermediary agencies for staffing. The ICT instructors are demanding that the agency-based system be discontinued and that they be appointed directly as government contractual employees. They said teachers from Phases 1 to 5 had secured government contractual status after earlier protests, while teachers working under Phases 6 and 7 remained employed through agencies such as Webel School Net and Extra Mark.
The teachers also said they had worked for around five years without receiving the same recognition and employment status. Their protest is therefore not limited to the immediate expiry of a contract; it also concerns who carries responsibility for workers deployed in publicly supported education and technology programmes.
The events in Salt Lake highlight the operational consequences of contract-based staffing in government-linked services. A change in agency or tender can alter the employment position of workers even when the service they provide continues. In this case, the teachers’ immediate demand is for direct government contractual appointment and official recognition before the September 30 contract deadline.
The protesters continued their sit-in outside Bikash Bhavan while seeking a meeting with government officials. The next formal step is the expiry of the existing agency contract and the proposed tender process that teachers fear could end their employment.
