SHILLONG, May 17: The government has assured that the salaries of the SSA teachers for March will be released by next week.
Informing this after the delegation of the Meghalaya SSA Schools Association (MSSASA) met Education Minister Rakkam A Sangma here on Wednesday, association president Aristotle Rymbai said that the pending salary for the month of March has been arranged through the corpus fund.
According to him, the government will need to shell out around Rs 26 to Rs 27 crore per month for payment of the salaries.
Meanwhile, Rymbai lauded the initiative taken by the Education minister to directly transfer the salary of the teachers to their bank accounts starting January this year. “Now our salaries are directly being disbursed to our respective bank accounts,” Rymbai said.
The Education minister also told the association that the Centre will release the first installment of the salary of SSA teachers in Meghalaya by the end of June or the first week of July for FY22-23.
He said that they have again impressed upon the Education minister to allocate more budget provision under Samagra Shisha Abhiyan so that the teachers do not suffer due to the delay in the release of salaries.
Also, the search committee is on the job to finalise the chairman and members of the State Education Commission, the minister told Rymbai.
The Education minister will again have a review to have an update on the work done by search committee so far.
He also informed that according to the Education minister, the department is on the job to identify the schools with zero enrolments of students and schools which highest enrollment of student. “It is after this exercise that the department will take steps to fill up the posts of the SSA teachers which were lying vacant for the past two years for whatever reasons,” Rymbai said.
On the regularisation of SSA teachers’ services and enhancement of their salaries, Rymbai said that discussions in this regard are under way and even a meeting to be called by the Education minister in this regard is due.
Rymbai said that the association is aware that the government has flagged the fact that it is facing difficulties in fulfilling their demands. He, however, said that this problem has been prevalent since the implementation of SSA. He gave the example of other states which are accommodating SSA teachers in existing SSA schools.
Admitting that the Meghalaya government is trying to make amends, he said that the Education minister has sought cooperation from the teachers as they resolve the problem.
