A seven-member delegation of Janamukti Secondary Teachers’ Organisation met Education Minister Partha De at Bikash Bhavan in Kolkata on Tuesday.

The association has been demanding permanent job status to 474 teachers and 78 non-teaching staff who were hired by the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council on an ad-hoc basis. The group also demanded appointment of new teachers for the schools in the Hills.

“There are numbers of problems in the hills. The teachers who are sent from the plains to the hills are not allowed to work there,” said De after the meeting.

In the late nineties, the DGHC had started recruiting teachers on its own, and the teachers appointed by the School Service Commission were not allowed to join at the schools in the Hills.

“The minister assured us that he would consider our case with sympathy.

We have asked all our members to take part in the examination process,” said Bhisen Roka, press and publication secretary of the teachers’ organisation.

He said that about 474 teachers were recruited by the DGHC in about 129 schools on an ad-hoc basis.