Editor,
I, on behalf of ICARE take this opportunity to express our appreciation to NEIDTA and its Secretary for clarifying that from NEIDTA side, “There is no such move to demolish /alter or to construct any commercial building in the said land where the cathedral stands.” Thank you Sir for this welcome news as it provides a vast relief to those of us who are concerned over the preservation of identified heritage structures and sites in and around our beloved Shillong.
Yours etc.,
Toki Blah,
Via email
Will the legislators of 2023 handle education better?
Editor,
We, in Meghalaya, are used to seeing teachers’ agitations in the streets or in public thoroughfares because they have been frequently seen there since the 1980s. We would then ask ourselves, “Who then will teach our children at school if teachers are instead found on the streets? Seeing teachers on the streets makes the common people empathise with them and support their cause. It is their right to agitate to realise their rightful dues. But they have become the thorn in the flesh of the government. The All Primary School Teachers’ Association were the first to agitate. Then came the All Meghalaya Primary School Teachers’ Association. Third, the Meghalaya College Teachers Association followed by the Khasi-Jaintia Deficit School Teachers’ Association. Recently we witnessed the agitations of FASTOM and MSSASA. All these teachers’ agitations – some literally spending their nights on the streets have put Meghalaya to shame in front of the whole country. The reasons for all this stem from either non-payment of salaries or grievances relating to salaries and allowances.
It was on June 26, 982 that the first teachers’ agitation took place under the umbrella of All Primary School Teachers’ Association (APSTA) led by its firebrand dynamic leader and teacher, Mr. F.C Shullai who was then its General Secretary. The Association (APSTA) initially consisted of 1022 District Council Lower Primary School teachers and 825 Grant in-Aid Lower Primary Schools run and managed by private managing committees of Khasi Hills only. All of them were paid by the Khasi Hills District Council. The reason for the agitation was against non-payment of five months’ salaries for DCLP teachers and 9 months salaries for Grant in-Aid teachers. The Khasi Hills District Council, in spite of the protests and agitations by teachers, did not bother to clear the pending dues because it had mismanaged, misused, diverted and messed up the funds meant for teachers’ salaries. Besides the KHDC at that time, had scant regard for teachers for they were appointed by them and were considered a tamed lot.
Seeing the plight of teachers who went without salaries for months together, the Government of the time, on 29 February, 1983, through the Administrator took over the DCLPs and Grant in-Aid Schools first for 3 months then renewed that for another 3 months every year. Later the period was extended for six months and finally on June 2, 1994 the Government took over all DCLPs in the state and they became Government DCLPs, while the Ad-hoc grant in Aid schools were converted to Deficit System of Grants-in-aid Schools, while Contributary Provident Fund and Death Cum Retirement Gratuity to the latter category of Grant-in-Aid were extended only in 2015.
It must be made clear here that teachers’ agitations are not over yet. The time is not long before we will see them back in the streets seeking solutions to their grievances. The Government tries to evade lasting solutions to their problems but for how long? Release of few months salaries is not the solution; in fact it is peanuts. The permanent solution is to ensure that an uninterrupted source of recurring funds is found in order to fund the teachers’ salaries, increments and allowances admissible from time to time. Payment of salaries is just one item only. What about the service rules for different types of teachers belonging to different types of schools? What about streamlining these types of schools so that service rules are also streamlined? Or is the Government saying that it is enough to assist the schools financially to meet the salaries’ of teachers, and to hell with service rules and regulations?
This is precisely why Primary, Upper Primary and Secondary education in Meghalaya is in shambles. What happened to the Primary Schools set up, run and managed by the District Council for so long (for almost 30 years)? Or is the State Government contented just to replicate them? Why is the foundation of our educational edifice in the State so weak and fragile today? The answer is that we have miserably failed to give top most priority to Education, especially to Primary and Upper Primary Education and all the entire baggage that goes with them in terms of budgetary allocation for infrastructure, human resource (teachers), enrolment (students), salary emoluments etc., right from day one of Meghalaya’s statehood. We have simply continued foolishly without a policy for the last 50 years. Will law makers of 2023 come up with a robust education policy that will take a long term view of education along with the outcomes expected from the primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary sector, listed out clearly for all to understand and raise the necessary questions?
Yours etc.,
Philip Marwein,
Sr. Journalist,
Shillong-2.
Why the threat from NEIDTA
Editor,
I think Mr Borkatoky’s threat of taking legal recourse against those that have written letters to the Shillong Times expressing their anguish or against the entire congregation on the alleged conversion of the revenue plots 55 and 56 on which the All Saints Parsonage etc., stand is preposterous.
It is also totally in conflict with the Christian Ethics of not taking your brother to court but settling it in a Christian manner which I presume aims at face to face talk.
1 Cor 6:1-20 reads:- “When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, “…
And in another instance, Prov 25:8-10 says, “Do not hastily bring into court, for what will you do in the end, when your neighbor puts you to shame? Argue your case with your neighbor himself, and do not reveal another’s secret, lest he who hears you bring shame upon you, and your ill repute have no end.” …
Yours etc.,
Gregory F Shullai,
Via email