Thousands of teachers under the banner of the government teachers union (GTU), Punjab, staged a protest at Vidya Bhawan, Mohali on Tuesday over various teacher- and student-related demands before marching towards the Punjab chief minister’s residence in Chandigarh.The protest ended after the administration provided written assurance of a meeting with the education department on June 9 and the cabinet sub-committee on June 23. (Sanjeev Sharma/HT)Led by state president Sukhwinder Singh Chahal and general secretary Gurbinder Singh Saskaur, the protesters alleged that no official came forward to receive their memorandum. The march was stopped by Punjab and Chandigarh Police on the Mohali-UT border, where teachers held a sit-in and raised slogans against the government.The union accused both the Centre and the Punjab government of weakening public education, alleging that implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 was leaving schools understaffed. It also criticised attempts to delink dearness allowance (DA) from the Central government pattern and expressed concern over repeated examination paper leaks, claiming these were jeopardising the future of students.Among the key demands raised were restoration of the old pension scheme (OPS), withdrawal of mandatory teacher eligibility test (TET) conditions, completion of pending promotions across teaching cadres, regularisation of contractual teachers, release of salary revision arrears and pending DA instalments, and exemption of teachers from non-academic duties such as booth level officers (BLOs) work and Census surveys.The protest ended after the administration provided written assurance of a meeting with the education department on June 9 and the cabinet sub-committee on June 23.