SHILLONG, Sep 15: A day after the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers staged a sit-in here, National People’s Party (NPP) MLA, from Phulbari, SG Esmatur Mominin, has moved the state government to adopt a resolution to urge the Centre to address the plight of SSA teachers in the state.
Moving a motion on the plight of teachers in the state, Mominin said, “I urge upon the House that a resolution be adopted urging the central government for the enhancement of SSA school teachers’ salary and also request the government of today to enhance the salary of the fourth teachers along with the ad hoc school upper and lower primary school teachers in the state”.
Stating that there are altogether 12,481 SSA school teachers in the state, he told the House that an upper primary SSA teacher gets monthly salary of around Rs 20,400 while a lower primary teacher gets around Rs 19,000 as salary. “In many of the SSA UP schools, there is no sanction for fourth teachers despite the requirement, which is a kind of discrimination. I urge the state government to kindly accord sanction for fourth teachers in the SSA UP schools where there is no sanction for the same,” the NPP MLA said.
Dwelling on the issue of government ad hoc school teachers, he said, “Ad hoc UP schools’ monthly grant is Rs 66,000 only for four teachers. Headmaster is getting a monthly salary of Rs 18,000 and others are getting Rs 16,000 each, while ad hoc LP school is getting Rs 24 000 for monthly salary of two teachers”.
The MLA maintained that the upper primary section renders more services to the society than the lower primary. “But there is a vast difference between the remuneration of UP school teachers and LP school teachers, which is discrimination,” he asserted.
He also pointed out that a higher secondary ad hoc teacher gets Rs 24,000 as salary and an ad hoc college teacher receives a lump sum amount of Rs 20,000-25,000 per month. “These teachers are well qualified and these are their salary patterns. The government must find ways to enhance their salaries,” he added.
Talking about deficit school teachers, the NPP legislator said, “They serve for nearly 30 to 35 years and retire almost empty handed. I urge the recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission which recommends that the scheme of pension and retirement benefits of the deficit teachers should be in line with other government employees”.
Meanwhile, Gambagre MLA and NCP chief, Saleng Sangma, Rongara Siju MLA, Rakkam Sangma, and Selsella MLA, Ferlin CA Sangma, also participated in the motion and asked the government to help the teachers.
Responding to these concerns flagged during the motion, Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui said that issues are not easy to solve and stated that they are regularly discussed.
“There are concrete steps taken by the state government to address the issue and efforts are being made at efficient level to meet the demand of the teachers and raise the dignified profession to a level of respect in the society,” Rymbui said.
The minister, however, said that all the points have been noted.
Moreover, he also informed the House that more than 1300 teachers have been appointed to serve in different government schools.
“We will do more and on appointment of teachers in Dadengere Subdivision. For upper primary section, it will be done in a few days. Everything is approved but delayed due to pandemic and model code of conduct,” he said.
Stating that around 1,000 schools from across the state apply for grant in aid, the minister said, “How to solve this problem? We are trying to analyse what is to be done and that is why till date we have not issued any grant in aid to new schools as we want to solve the problems first and it is not easy.”
