(TAP) - Hundreds of substitute teachers gathered in the Kasbah on Wednesday to demand that their professional situation be regularised and that they be granted permanent status in the civil service. The demonstrators said they would start their protest at the Ministry of Education, then go to Parliament and later to the Presidency of the Republic. They asked President Kais Saied to intervene in order to regularise the issue through a presidential decree and put an end to their precarious social situation by granting them employment contracts and permanent status, the general coordinator of the file of substitute teachers told TAP. Mohamed Essafi, secretary-general of the General Union of Secondary Education, pointed out that a large number of vacancies in secondary schools have not been filled, according to the ministry, and called for the permanent employment of substitute teachers who have been working on contracts for a long time. He denounced the Ministry of Education's and the government's policy of procrastination on the issue of substitute teachers and the failure to implement previous agreements. The General Union of Secondary Education rejects the idea of regularising the situation of substitute teachers through competitive examinations, "since the teachers concerned have been working under a contractual formula for around fifteen years," he pointed out. He added: "Education reform must include the integration of substitute teachers. Malek Ayari, the national coordinator of substitute teachers, said they would march to the Presidency of the Republic in Carthage on Wednesday after a rally at the headquarters of the Ministry of Education and the ARP. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse