Teachers to storm Addl Secretariat on Wednesday

SHILLONG: A conglomeration of SSA teachers and 4th teachers of the State under the banner Meghalaya SSA School Association (MSSASA) has decided to storm the Additional Secretariat on April 12 following the failure of the State government to meet the March 31 deadline to fulfil their demands.
According to MSSASA president Aristotle Rymbai, the State government has been making promises but not fulfilling them.
“We have been patient for a long time with a hope that the Congress-led MUA-II government would understand the plight of the teaching community, especially the SSA and 4th teachers. The revised pay scale and arrears of the 12,481 SSA teachers were due since April 2016 as per the order issued by the Commissioner and Secretary of the education department, who is also the State Mission Director of SEMAM, on October 31, 2016,” he said.
However, till date, the government has not released the amount to raise the pay scale of the 1,500-odd 4th teachers since 2013.
Rymbai asked all teachers, both SSA and 4th, to come out in large numbers on April 12 at Jingkieng Nongthymmai Playground at 9 am, and from there, a mass rally till the Additional Secretariat will be taken out at 10 am.
The MSSASA president criticised the State government for not rectifying the glaring anomalies in the results of the Diploma in Elementary Education (D.El.Ed) for the past one year now.
After the association had organised a mass gathering on March 17 in front of the office of the Directorate of School Education and Literacy, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma on March 20 informed the House during the recently concluded Budget session that the government would soon increase the salary of the teachers by 100 percent.
“But till date no clear notification was issued by the State government on how much the 4th teachers’ salary will be hiked,” Rymbai said.
In every Assembly session, the government discusses at length on the quality of education and that of teachers, but the same is not being followed in letter and spirit, he added.
Asserting that the government’s silence shows it did not want teachers to perform their duties in schools, Rymbai said, “If this government is seriously concerned, then why is it taking so long to rectify the mistakes in the (D.El.Ed) results, a memorandum for which was agreed between the government and NIOS wherein as many as 7,822 teachers in the elementary level has been affected.”
“The government is forcing teachers to come out to the street to demand for their rights,” he added.