The notification of the State Education Department in November this year that teachers wishing to contest elections or to join political parties should first resign their post appears to have been taken in a moment of pique since the National Peoples’ Party (NPP) itself has many in its ranks who are teachers of different colleges. It includes the Rajya Sabha MP, WR Kharlukhi who served as President of the NPP in Meghalaya while still a teacher. Now there are teachers from different colleges who recently joined the Voice of Peoples’ Party (VPP) led by Ardent Basaiawmoit. If those teachers had joined the NPP would the Government have come up with that notification? If the Government had taken that decision after giving sufficient reasons why it is doing so then perhaps the public reaction would not have been as loud as it is today.
The UGC regulations cited by VPP President Ardent Basaiawmoit which deals with the Code of Professional Ethics of Teachers, states that teachers should, “Perform the duties of citizenship, participate in community activities and shoulder responsibilities of public offices.” Basaiawmoit further cited the UGC notification of May 2019 that teachers in Universities and Colleges who are elected as Members of Parliament or Members of State Legislature can continue their teaching duties while at the same time execute their functions as MPs and MLAs without the necessity of taking any kind of leave if they so desire. Even when taking leave, there should not be any break in their service. A Division Bench of the Gauhati High Court in WA. No. 14 of 2001, dated 07-12-2005 also ruled that employees in government aided educational institutions are not ‘government’ employees.
This is a very interesting juncture for Meghalaya. On the one hand there is need for political discussions in the classroom so that students are exposed to a range of ideas about politics, political participation, political ideologies and how politics influences governance. The question however is whether a teacher who is already aligned to a particular political ideology and political party be able to create an atmosphere for a free and fair discussion on politics and governance in the classroom especially at the college and university level where students have their own political alliances. Is it possible to create a climate where all the competing views in the classroom are allowed free rein? Studies have shown that there is such a thing as political seepage meaning that teachers aligned to a particular political ideology tend to be intolerant of other views. That invites the most divisive parts of the partisan climate into the classroom. It is this that needs a public debate.
