Raj Khadun is not interested in going back to Medco Clairfonds as a Commerce teacher. What he wants is to get back the dignity he believes he has lost with his transfer to R. Prayag SSS since Monday morning. ?They do not need one additional teacher there. After more than 30 years as a Commerce teacher in Form V, I am only replacing absent teachers. I have no timetable, no workload?, he regrets.

?We do realise that there are too many teachers in some Medco colleges but what we dispute is the way the ministry informed us of our transfer,? reveals the president of the Union of Private Secondary Education Employees (UPSEE), Yahya Paraouty. The latter has also been transferred in a state school ? Sir Abdool Razack Mohamed ? after 31 years at Medco Trinity.

Like those two teachers, 19 others from these two secondary schools have been sent to state colleges ?following an exercise carried out jointly by the ministry of Education and Human Resources and Medco for the optimal use of teachers both in State and Medco schools?.

An agreement between the ministry of Education and the UPSEE in 1983 has been forcing the government to redeploy teachers made redundant from schools that couldn?t afford to remain open because of low school population or problems related to infrastructure, facilities and investment. So, the state created the company Medco to redeploy all teachers who were made redundant. But these colleges have not stopped being criticised since then. Several reports have pointed at the high number of teachers and the low number of working hours in such colleges.

?The fact that teachers were sent to Medco colleges because their schools were closing down did not mean that they would not be redeployed in any college afterwards. In fact, what was supposed to be provisional became permanent,? explains former director of the PSSA, Prem Burton. He goes even further. ?I find it completely natural that, in view of the economic situation, teachers from Medco are being redeployed in State colleges if there are vacancies there. The PSSA has always been encouraged to draw resources from Medco.? The more so, as there are reportedly too many teachers in those colleges.

Punitive transfer

Even the teachers who have recently been made redundant agree there are too many teachers in some Medco schools. ?But we could at least have been consulted,? says Raj Khadun. ?I had not been made redundant at the time I came to work at Medco Clairfonds. I applied there because I wanted to go and work there. Now, the irony is that I am made redundant of that school.?

According to Yahya Paraoutty, all stakeholders ? including the ministry of Education, the management and the teachers ? should have met and reached a decision. ?I am sure that some teachers would have liked to move. But do you find it normal that a person living in Vacoas is being sent to La Gaulette or someone living in Calodyne is being sent to Bambous?? For him, it is a confirmation that it is merely a punitive transfer because of his role in the protests concerning the exam fees.

As for Raj Khadun, his transfer and that of his colleagues in Pierrefonds might actually be the result of his former rector?s words a few months ago. ?After two years? suspension, the rector was reinstated last February. When he came back, he thanked all those who supported him and warned that all those who would not get into the wagon would be left in the station,? he remembers. But the main concerned asserts that the transfer has been a ?decision coming from the ministry?.

The ministry indeed realised there were too many resources in the Medco colleges and decided to use them where they would be more useful. ?In some cases, only 10 periods were allocated to a teacher every week,? says the communiqué. ?This may be true in some cases but can you tell me why the ministry decided to transfer me to replace teachers and work only a few hours while I was working 23 hours a week at Medco?? wonders Raj Khadun. And the trade unionist asserts that Raj Khadun is far from being the only one in that situation.

It is far from being the first time Medco is at the centre of a controversy. But the UPSEE intends to continue fighting. After their special general assembly today, unionists will vote a list of claims. ?We do not put the possibility of a strike aside by the end of May ? or even a hunger strike in the short-term,? says Yahya Paraoutty. What the unionist actually wants is an open discussion with the ministry to better plan the transfers and give the opportunity to the teachers to choose?