SHILLONG, March 17: The dates for the contentious Meghalaya Teachers’ Eligibility Test (MTET) will likely be announced in the coming weeks.
This was informed by Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui on Wednesday during the Question Hour.
“In the coming weeks, the notification to conduct the MTET exams will be out,” said Rymbui, while the House was deliberating over matters pertaining to ad hoc schools and teachers in the state, which was raised by Mawphlang MLA, Syntar Klas Sunn.
Raising a supplementary question, Rongara Siju legislator Rakkam Sangma informed the House that there are 80 schools in his constituency without teachers even as he enquired as to when the vacant posts will be filled.
To his query, the education minister said that the process of appointing teachers and posting them is under way, while informing that it will likely be completed in a few weeks’ time.
Assembly Speaker also entered the discussion informing the minister in-charge that there are many schools without a single teacher.
Joining in with them, Mawsynram MLA HM Shangpliang brought to the House’s notice that at border villages in Mawsynram, Ranikor and Rambrai Jyrngam, there are around 20-30 Garo schools, wherein teachers make use of the local (Garo) dialect. However, since most could not qualify the MTET, the schools are now left with no teachers, he informed.
The MLA asked the government to allow the MTET-failed teachers or make an arrangement so as to prevent the schools from closing down.
Responding to these concerns, Lahkmen Rymbui said that he has not checked the list of MTET candidates who cleared the test, while hinting at the possibility of some from the community who may have cleared the exam, adding that they could be posted there.
The Mawsynram legislator asserted that the issue is serious and needs immediate attention, to which Rymbui said that that the department is serious.
“It is easier said than done,” the minister said, while pointing out multiple issues which need to be addressed. “It may take some time, but MTET will be conducted again,” he said.
However, Shangpliang reasoned that the schools cannot wait for the MTET to be conducted as it may even take a year for the recruitment process to finish, while asserting that an immediate arrangement is the need of the hour. The education minister, however, maintained, “Whatever we do, we do in consonance with the law of the land”.