SHILLONG, July 21: The East Khasi Hills unit of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has launched a scathing attack at Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui over his ‘no work no pay’ ultimatum served earlier to the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers agitating over pending salaries.
The attack from the TMC comes a day after the SSA teachers on Wednesday threatened to resign en masse lest the education minister failed to recall his order warning teachers to resume work or face pay cuts.
Rymbui had earlier warned that the state government would be forced to issue an order of ‘no work, no pay’ if the SSA teachers do not return to their schools.
In a statement on Thursday, the district unit of the TMC said that the education minister, by making such a statement, has damaged his stature in public.
Condemning the remark, the TMC said that the same was ridiculous and unfounded.
“Perhaps he (Rymbui) has forgotten himself to have been taught by the very teachers who made him what he is today on that constitutional chair. It is also ridiculous to ask teachers to return home while the minister seems contended to go with his stomach full, while teachers, who have families, are left in the lurch. How can the state education minister be so insensitive to their plight,” the TMC said.
Expressing solidarity with and assuring support to the SSA teachers, an irate TMC said, “If teachers, who are the educators of society, are treated and humiliated this way, where are the so-called responsibilities of the MDA government? What has happened to that Rs 2,000 crore which the chief minister himself bragged about being spent on the education sector?”
Earlier, Rymbui had asked the teachers to call of their agitation and resume work.
“We will have no option other than to issue the order of no work, no pay if they refuse to go back to their classes. We will also withdraw the grant-in-aid of the managing committees of those schools which are closed despite repeated requests by the government,” he had warned.
It may be mentioned that the SSA teachers on Saturday evening pulled the plug on their indefinite sit-in after they were assured by the state government that four months’salary will be released to them by next week and an Education Commission will be set up to deal with their grievances, including the enhancement of salaries.
