By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Dec 26: The Meghalaya government is gearing up to ensure that all elementary schoolteachers in the state are trained.
Education Minister Rakkam A Sangma said, “We will explore. We will make sure that all the teachers are trained. If they cannot be trained systematically, we can give at least some short-term training, orientation and motivation,” Sangma said.
Meghalaya has 18,900 untrained elementary teachers, only seven DIETs and one Teacher Training Centre with a total intake of 550 trainees per academic session, which makes bridging the gap challenging.
Stating that the recruitment process to fill up over 1,200 vacancies in government LP schools and more than 300 to 400 in UP schools are at an advanced stage, the minister said, “In most cases, we are declaring the results within 24 hours of the completion of interview. This is the first time that we have done it within 24 hours.”
He said the appointment letters might be issued to the successful candidates in the first week of January.
Pointing out that the cabinet has already approved the education recruitment board, he said, “The DERT and the B.Ed college will complete the process to fill 200-300 vacancies in the secondary and higher secondary schools in three to four months.”
In July this year, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma had requested the Centre to allow one-time training for the state’s untrained elementary schoolteachers.
Meghalaya has a huge backlog of untrained teachers due to limited institutional facilities, the CM had told Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan during a meeting in New Delhi.
In a letter addressed to Pradhan, Sangma underlined the shortage of institutional facilities in Meghalaya. He cited that the state has only five Colleges of Teacher Education offering only 350 seats annually against 5,548 secondary and 2,043 higher secondary teachers who are untrained.
Govt working on
teachers’ salary
The minister said the SSA teachers’ demand to regularise their services will require a lot of debates and discussions. At the same time however, he said a solution is being worked out.
“This is not an issue that we can decide overnight. A lot of discussions and debates will be required to decide because SSA is a mission mode programme of Government of India,” he said.
“They (teachers) are appointed by the School Management Committees (SMCs). So, taking it over by the government from the SMCs is not a simple process,” he said, adding that due process has to be followed.
For a while, the SSA teachers have been demanding regularisation of their services and enhancement of salaries.
In one of their representations addressed to the CM, the SSA Teachers’ Association maintained that the SSA teachers serving for the last 21 years have been deprived and neglected of their rights and provisions.
Pointing out that SSA is not separate but aligned to RTE, the association insisted the SSA teachers be taken into consideration under the State Education Department and RTE norms of the current State Education Society.