SHILLONG, June 29: Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui’s appeal to agitating ad hoc teachers to cooperate with the government failed to break the deadlock with the teachers insisting that they would continue with their indefinite protest until the government issues an order to enhance their salaries.
For the second day on Wednesday, teachers sat on the roadside outside the Secretariat – their numbers having swelled – waiting for the government to fulfill their demand.
Rymbui met a delegation of the Federation of All School Teachers Of Meghalaya (FASTOM) on Wednesday and assured that their demand for higher pay would be discussed in the next cabinet meeting.
“We had discussed the demand of the ad hoc teachers in the last cabinet meeting. I assure the teachers that the process is on and a decision will be taken in the next cabinet meeting,” Rymbui told reporters after the meeting.
He made it clear that it was not going to be an easy decision for the government since the financial implication of the demand would be around Rs 200 crore annually.
“In the Education department it is a matter of recurring expense. We are serious on the commitment made to the teachers and it is for this reason that the cabinet had deliberated on the issue,” Rymbui said.
“I urge the ad hoc teachers to cooperate with us since there are positive developments on the promises made by the chief minister on May 12,” Rymbui said, adding that the government will not shy away from its responsibility.
FASTOM spokesperson Mayborn Lyngdoh said the meeting with the Education minister ended without any conclusion since they insisted that the government should come up with an order on the enhancement of their salaries.
“We have conveyed to the Education department that the teachers will sit outside the Secretariat till the time the government issues an order to enhance our salaries,” Lyngdoh said.
“This demand has been pending since 2019. We are not ready to call off our agitation since our stand is clear,” Lyngdoh said.
Earlier in the day, AITC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and party leader Mukul Sangma interacted with the protesting teachers and assured to take up their issue.
Adding strength to the teachers’ fight, senior BJP legislator AL Hek questioned why the state government was unable to address the genuine demands of the teachers.
“The government has to govern. When you are governing but not meeting the genuine demands of the teachers then what are we governing?” Hek questioned while interacting with the teachers.
He said he would take up the issue of the teachers during the BJP’s national executive meeting to be held in Hyderabad shortly.
The UDP also urged the state government to take steps to fulfill the demands of the ad hoc teachers.
UDP general secretary Jemino Mawthoh said the party discussed the teachers’ agitation with party MLA and Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui.
Thma U Rangli-Juki (TUR) and Workers’ Power of Meghalaya (WPA) have also come out in support of the struggling teachers.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the two organisations said the state government had lied to the teachers that they would take immediate cognizance of their demands.
“Cabinet meetings have come and gone without any solution to the legitimate demands of the school teachers. We always believed that all working people need to get a living wage and their demands are justified,” TUR and WPA said.
They said it was shameful that despite 50 years of statehood, Meghalaya stood at the bottom of all developmental indicators in India.
“Whether it is health or education or food security, Meghalaya’s decline has been rapid and we are fast approaching a situation where Meghalaya would be considered the developmental basket case of India. In the recent Performance Grading Index of Education Meghalaya stood below Bihar in all the indicators. One of the most important indicators was the working conditions of school teachers and not surprisingly we were scraping the bottom of the list,” they said.
They also stated that there was no financial crisis but financial mismanagement by the government.
“The Meghalaya government is all gung ho about finding money for big cars, renovating offices, corrupt iconic infrastructural projects, foreign trips, highly paid useless consultants and meaningless events etc., but when it comes to the fundamental needs of any society the government says there is no money,” the statement said.
TUR also referred to the CAG reports and recalled that the government had reduced its expenditure on education by Rs 67 crore in 2019-20 and the trend has continued. The department failed to provide utilisation certificate for Rs 2264 crore of grant it received for education that has resulted in Meghalaya not being able to access grants for improving school education and paying its teachers a respectable wage.
