MUMBAI, June 2: Primary teachers from municipal schools in Mumbai have boycotted a training programme started by the state government on the grounds that the municipal corporation had already provided them such training and that they were being robbed of their summer vacation.

Since May 12, the programme, called `Education For All', has been preparing them for the "minimum level of learning" to enable them to handle students better. More than 4,000 teachers in Mumbai have completed the course in the first batch. But on May 21, the teachers' union of the BMC, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Karmachari Sangh (BMKS), took note of complaints that the training was inconvenient and called a boycott.

Ramesh Joshi, general secretary of the BMKS, told Express Newsline that the training was similar to one started by the BMC in 1989-90, so the union had requested Education Minister Sudhir Joshi that municipal teachers from the city should be relieved from it. The BMC programme, started under UNICEF, was being followed by all municipal schools. Joshi said the state government had implemented the same programme now under the new education policy without planning and discussing it with the teachers.

He complained of discrimination between zilla parishad schools and Mumbai schools. ``In zilla parishads, the programme is residential while teachers from Mumbai have to travel to 54 training centres,'' he said. Further, teachers in zilla parishads receive Rs 30 a day as stipend while those from the city get nothing. Joshi said Vijay Deoskar, the director of education, had promised that teachers from Mumbai would also receive the money but none from the first batch has got anything so far.

Deoskar admitted that there was opposition to the training from teachers here and that they were unhappy with the travel and refreshment allowance of Rs 30 that they received. But, he said, it was not possible to provide accommodation to them at the centres.

Moreover, many of them lived outside the city and were not available during summer holidays. ``To them,'' Deoskar said, ``the state has agreed to provide training during the new academic year.'' BMC education officer D U Dandwate felt the new programme was different from the one implemented by the corporation. He said the training was necessary as the syllabus had been changed.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.