SHILLONG: The Opposition MLAs in Meghalaya Assembly have urged the State government to take necessary measures to ensure that teachers don’t remain absent from their duties for weeks even after withdrawing their salary every month.
Moving a cut motion, Mawlai MLA, P T Sawkmie, lamented that the education standard in government schools in the state had gone down and many of the schools lacked proper infrastructures even as he added that there were insufficient number of private schools, colleges and universities in the state.
Participating in the motion, Mawsynam MLA, HM Shangpliang reiterated that many of the schools in the rural areas of the state were in deplorable condition and slammed the Meghalaya Board of School Education for changing the syllabus at such a time that many publishers have failed to provide textbooks on time.
He also stated that many teachers in the state remained absent for weeks and they attended classes only to show their face.
Urging the government to monitor the presence of teachers in the schools, he said that some teachers were behaving as if the schools were their own property.
He even urged the government to conduct surprise checkings in schools and alleged that there were some ghost schools manned by ghost teachers and called for an inquiry into the matter.
East Shillong MLA, Ampareen Lyngdoh said that the government must introduce a mechanism to curb varied school fee patterns of the private schools, adding that the government must come down hard on educational institutions to use school buses for students to reduce traffic congestion like what is being done in other cities
She also stressed on the need to provide necessary counseling to the students about the substance abuse
The MLA from Umroi, George Lyngdoh earlier said that the government should use Information Technology to monitor the attendance of the teachers in schools.