SHILLONG, July 21: A day after Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui issued a “no work, no pay” threat to the agitating SSA teachers and they responded by threatening mass resignation, the Meghalaya Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan Schools Association (MSSASA) on Thursday evening called off its indefinite stir.
The decision followed the state government’s assurance to clear their pending salaries of four months by next week and set up an Education Commission to look into the issues of enhancement of salaries and other grievances.
“After a meeting with Deputy Chief Minister (Prestone Tynsong) today, we have come to the place where we started the protest. We had a detailed discussion with all our colleagues and we decided unanimously to call off the indefinite dharna,” MSSASA president Aristotle Rymbai told journalists.
The protesting teachers, who had slept on the streets for three nights from July 18, had an eventful day on Thursday with back to back meetings. They met Governor Satya Pal Malik and sought his intervention for redressal of their grievances. They also had another meeting with Tynsong and senior officials of the Education department.
“The Deputy Chief Minister informed us that the state government has released the balanced amount of Rs 44 crore today itself for clearing the pending salaries of February and March last year. The government also decided to use an amount of Rs 78 crore from the corpus fund which will be refunded once it receives the first installment from the Centre,” Rymbai said.
He said the two amounts of Rs 44 crore and Rs 78 crore should be transferred or credited to the single nodal agency, not later than July 21 this year (Thursday). The pending salaries of one month will be released after the first installment is received, he said.
He also said that the government told the association the issue of enhancement of salary will be addressed by the Education Commission once it is constituted.
Tynsong said, “I have communicated that government has decided to release pending salaries of four months by next week. The same for the remaining one month will be released when fund is received from the Centre.” On the demand for enhancement of salary, he said he had told the teachers to be patient.
“I have informed them officially that we are setting up an education commission. For the first time in the history of the state, all categories of teachers and school managements will always submit their proposals or share their grievances through this commission. It will make recommendations to the government after studying the same,” the Deputy Chief Minister said.
He said the Centre sometimes releases its share very late. He said keeping this in mind, the state government decided to urge the Centre to release the funds quarterly.
Disclosing that he will leave for Delhi along with Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, Tynsong said, “We have already discussed this issue. The Chief Minister and I will take it up seriously and try to convince the Ministry of Finance to release this financial assistance quarterly as every state government is facing this problem. I am sure it will be considered.”
He said these schools are purely private and their management should also shoulder the responsibility as the government alone cannot do everything.
“If you want to provide quality education, how can you expect the government alone to do it? The management also has to be involved. Only then that we will see a change,” he added.
