PAU students announce stir to reinstate agriculture teachers’ cadre in schools from Nov 4

The Punjab Agricultural Students Association here on Tuesday announced a fresh stir to press for their demand to make agriculture a mandatory subject in schools across the state and reinstating the recruitment of agricultural teachers. The stir has been scheduled to start on November 4.
“After continuous meetings with agriculture graduates and students over the past two days at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) Ludhiana, it has been announced that an agitation will be launched to reinstate the recruitment of agriculture teachers in schools and make the subject mandatory,” the students said in a press release issued on Tuesday.
“We will start mobilising the students and raise awareness among them till then and when we are ready for the stir we’ll start with it,” said a student’s leader Angrej Mann, who is one of the founders of the association.
Mann claimed to have met the agriculture minister 13 times, education minister 12 times, speaker twice, other ministers and even sent memorandums through MLAs.
“After so many meetings, we have nothing in our hands,” lamented Mann.
He claimed that after their 37-day long protest in 2022 regarding filling the vacant posts in agriculture department and creation of a post for farm teachers “as promised by Bhagwant Mann before becoming the chief minister (CM)” they were invited by the CM and assured that their demands would be considered.
“None of our demands have been met so far.”
In a report presented in the Punjab assembly in March 2023, the government had said that the earlier government dissolved the cadre for agricultural teachers. They recommended that the cadre be reinstated, and the subject be taught as a vocational subject because Punjab is an agricultural state.
This September during the Kisan Mela the students met the minister. “The minister said that he would talk to the CM, however, nothing has come of that as well,” said Mann.
PAU V-C Satbir Singh Gosal has also written to the government in favour of their demands.
“Punjab is an agrarian state. It makes sense to teach the students about agriculture so that when they pass out from school, they have a career option in agriculture as well,” said Gosal.
“If this is done, it would be beneficial to the state,” he added.