By Avner Pariat
The Chief Minister likes to tell stories. Like any good politician, he is an expert yarn-spinner. I have come to realise that some people are perfectly suited for politics (of a certain kind). Their abilities are forged at the dinner table or around a living room – chatting and listening in turn. These private spaces are the staging areas for testing and tempering of their reasoning and oratorical skills before their debut in public. Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of this intimate setup is that the practitioner might start confusing his own thoughts for public sentiment. Often in the presence of an ever- encouraging retinue of friends and family they might start believing their own narratives. Let us examine two of these wonderful imaginatively creative stories as told to us by our favourite bed-time storyteller, Conrad K. Sangma.
Yarn no.1 – “Meghalaya spends Rs 2000 crore per year on Education”. The moral behind this story is that the MDA is spending so much money on that sector and that we – the citizens – should be grateful and not make a fuss about the sad plight of Education (and educators) in Meghalaya. This yarn we must recall was told with the ongoing SSA teachers’ fight in the background. It is not a neutral statement. It is loaded with implications of a particular political position.
While Rs 2000 crore a year sounds like a lot of money, it is actually tiny when compared to the overall budgetary allocations that are made each year. If the chief minister is promising Modi (another great storyteller) a doubling of the GSDP to 10 billion dollars per annum within the next 5 years we should demand more devotion to the education budget. Today Meghalaya has a state GDP of about 5 billion dollars per annum which means that education is not even reaching a measly 10%. Southern states in comparison spend in the double digits on their education sector and it shows in the type of society they are building. Numerous publications including the 2021 Niti Aayog report have highlighted the terrible state of education in Meghalaya. This is in spite of massive injections of investment from the Asian Development Bank in the past few years. Turns out new buildings do not really lead to better education after all especially when the teachers still have to worry about their salaries.
To be fair, the overall trend at almost all levels of government (including that of Central Government bodies like the UGC) seems to be a general divestment and pull-back from spending. Recently there was a serious issue which the Meghalaya College Teachers’ Association (MCTA) had taken up wherein newly-appointed (well-qualified) teachers were deemed to no longer be entitled to the full UGC payment scale but would instead be paid in part by the state DHTE. The salaries and benefits from the state as you can well imagine would not be of the same degree as those offered by the UGC. This is clearly quantitative easing and similar struggles in Panjab University and others have highlighted the same problem.
Since the problem is the same for both SSA and college teachers, it follows that the solution must be the same as well. The teachers at college and school level must demand that the government spends MORE on education not a mere Rs 2000 crore. A smart forward-thinking society will be borne out of this. The teachers must learn from the farmers of Singhu and keep applying pressure. Be creative, be seen, be heard and – most of all – be POLITICAL.
Going further in on this, Yarn No. 2 has Mr Conrad spinning a fabulous narrative that teachers should not do politics. To be fair, he is not the first legislator to say this. And he will probably not be the last. Words aside, his government has issued a notification recently that strictly prohibits teachers from joining any political party or similar organisations. This is a bold move by the MDA as many of its leading advocates happen to be teachers themselves! I wonder what they will think about this decision? I hope they will not hurriedly delete the numerous social media photos they have had taken with the NPP and its luminaries! This “don’t do politics” yarn is like a scary anecdote told to children in order to frighten them into “good behaviour”. However teachers are not children. They build the future thorough their efforts in the present. I applaud the teachers right now but I also urge them to be braver and bolder in their fight. This problem of delayed payment is not new and we must fight together to ensure that neither this government nor any other that comes after shall be allowed to do this again.
On a recent visit to Switzerland, I was told that teachers there are some of the best paid and best equipped professionals. It can be that way here too but we must stop listening to sob stories issued by the government. If they don’t have money for the education department, they can jolly well make cuts to less important ones. Government must enhance/increase its spending in crucial sectors not back away from its responsibility.
(Avner Pariat is a writer, cultural practitioner and President of New Dawn Meghalaya, a political organisation dedicated to strengthening Democracy in the state. Email – [email protected] or visit newdawnmeghalaya.com)