A large number of school guest teachers staged a protest outside the residence of Haryana Education Minister Mahipal Dhanda here on Wednesday, demanding their regularisation in accordance with court orders and withdrawal of the mandatory Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) requirement.

Following the demonstration, School Education Department Principal Secretary Vijay Singh Dahiya, invited the agitating teachers at his Chandigarh office for talks on September 24.

Addressing the protesters, Rajkiya Anubandhit Adhyapak Sangh president Dinesh Yadav, women’s wing president Poonam Kumari and State general secretary Bhupendra Singh demanded that guest teachers be treated as regular employees with effect from May 28, 2014, and be paid arrears with 6% interest.

They also criticised the Haryana Guest Teachers Rules, 2026, issued by the Education Department a day earlier, saying that the new provisions had reduced casual leave for male guest teachers from 15 to 10 days a year and for female teachers from 25 to 22 days.

They also objected to the provisions relating to maternity and childcare leave. The leaders said the rules provided for 720 days of childcare leave without pay and did not adequately address maternity leave for women guest teachers.

The agitating teachers said the Supreme Court, in its April 16, 2026, judgment, had upheld the State’s policy providing for regularisation of eligible Group B, C and D employees with three years of service. The Punjab and Haryana High Court, in its April 29 judgment in the Satya Dev, Sant Kumar and Jasbir Singh case, had subsequently directed the Haryana government to regularise guest teachers working as Post Graduate Teachers, Trained Graduate Teachers and Junior Basic Teachers, they said. According to the teachers’ union, similar directions had been issued by the High Court in more than a dozen other cases.

The union has been holding an indefinite protest at the Kurukshetra Mini Secretariat since June 23, demanding implementation of the court orders. It said nearly 16,000 guest teachers were awaiting regularisation and urged the government to provide them gratuity, pension and other benefits applicable to regular employees.

The protesters said the government should implement the court orders and take a decision on regularisation at the Chief Minister’s level.