SHILLONG: The Meghalaya SSA Schools Association has served a 30 day deadline on the State government effective from February 2 to fulfill all their demands which have been pending for long.
Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Manbha K. Raswai, president of the association, informed that they submitted a memorandum on the same day to Deputy Chief Minister in charge of Education, R.C. Laloo, demanding implementation of mandatory norms of SSA and RTE 2009 and shifting of all posts of Primary and Upper Primary teachers from the implementation society of the State – Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan State Education Mission Authority Meghalaya – to the State Education department on a regular basis.
Raswai informed that they have urged the government to appoint all working SSA teachers under the State Education department on a regular basis with equal salary and service conditions as those of other teachers of the State.
They have also demanded hike in salary of LP teachers from Rs 9200 per month to Rs 30000 and those of UP teachers from Rs 9900 per month to Rs 35000 per month as had been done in Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura and Mizoram.
They further demanded regularization of the service of the SSA teachers as done in other parts of the country including Arunachal Pradesh.
“People who are qualified will not apply for teaching considering the meager pay; even a peon gets higher pay than us teachers,” Raswai lamented, while justifying the demand for salary hike.
“The government cited reasons that the teachers are not trained but according to our findings half of the teachers in the State have completed their training and some are in their second year of training,” he stated.
H. Marbaniang, general secretary of the association, said the association would be compelled to take legal route to get justice for the teachers.
Pointing that in Meghalaya SSA teachers are recruited on contractual basis, he said states like Nagaland, Manipur, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, etc., recruit teachers only on regular basis for even those posts which are funded by SSA.
The Association pointed out that the State government’s activity in terms of salary, allowances and service conditions of teachers is prejudiced and added that the government has violated the RTE Act 2009 by prescribing different service conditions for Primary and Upper Primary teachers appointed under SSA budget.
