100,000 Teachers To Protest At Roi Et Tomorrow As Pm Thaksin Arrives

[george]

100,000 teachers to protest at Roi Et tomorrow as PM Thaksin arrives

BANGKOK: -- More than 100,000 teachers expected to attend annual Teachers Day celebrations on Monday at the Roi Et provincial seat will also protest the government's school transfer plan, according to an opponent of the policy who appears to be losing his job becuase of this point of view.

Uaichai Matha said the Teachers Day celebrations and the rally protesting the government policy of putting its schools under provincial jurisdiction had been planned earlier and had nothing to do with the prime minister's arrival in the northeastern province for an anti-poverty initiative.

Teachers in the morning will perform religious ceremony and attend the rally in the afternoon, Mr. Uaichai said, adding that protesting teachers would not want to waste any more time arguing about the controversial issue because both Education Minister Chaturon Chaisang and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra clearly would not listen to them.

He said he expected over 100,000 teachers to join Monday's protest, less by 300,000 teachers who planned to participate but that teachers "mostly from the Northeast" were ordered not to by the minister of education, his deputy and the secretary general of the Basic Education Commission.

Mr. Uaichai said his direct superior ordered him to resign his teaching post Jan 13 or be dismissed. He said he refused to resign as he had done nothing wrong, but his superior responded by telling him that a committee had been set up to investigate him on charges that he as junior civil servant had allegedly criticised both the prime minister and the education minister.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Rumpai Rasikul, a teacher in Roi Et who had received an outstanding award for 2005 from the Teacher's Council, said she was also against the government's policy on the transfer of public schools under provincial jurisdiction because the provincial authorities were not prepared to administer the schools.

"Society should understand that teachers oppose the government policy in order to maintain the quality of education," Mrs. Rumpai said. "They are not demonstrating for their own benefit."

However, she said she did not plan to join the rally as it would waste her teaching time.

--TNA 2006-01-15