Chennai: State government is considering a demand to serve chicken biryani as part of the noon-meal programme in schools, school education minister A Rajmohan said on Tuesday.The proposal was among several demands raised when the minister met representatives of more than 150 teachers’ and non-teaching staff associations in the city. Some associations sought the inclusion of chicken biryani in the menu at least once a week.Other demands included regularisation of part-time teachers, reduction of the qualifying marks for the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET), pay revision for secondary grade teachers and restoration of the old pension scheme.Rajmohan said the petitions submitted by the associations would be digitised using dedicated software to ensure better tracking. The demands would be categorised, and updates on the action taken would be made available to the associations concerned, he added.Representatives of the Tamil Nadu Elementary School Teachers’ Association sought the filling of teacher vacancies from LKG to Class V in model schools.“Our primary demand is to fill vacant teacher posts from LKG to Class V in model schools, which were repurposed from higher secondary schools in 2018-19. While posts for Classes VI to XII have been filled, the elementary sections continue to bear the brunt of the vacancies,” said R Doss, the association’s district general secretary.“A total of 11,773 have been working as part-time teachers under the Samagra Shiksha for 16 academic years in subjects such as physical education, drawing, computer science and sewing, among others. The govt should regularise their services,” said S Senthilkumar, state coordinator of the Tamil Nadu Part-Time Teachers Federation.
