By RB Dkhar
The two Government Nursing Colleges of Meghalaya, which the government desires to establish with the noble vision of advancing professional healthcare education, appear to have been conceived with a structural flaw — a foundational defect that will undermine the dignity and growth of its teaching cadre. At the heart of this defect lies an ignored discrepancy: the lack of equivalence in position and status between teaching posts in Nursing Colleges and those within the Directorate of Health Services.
Despite being governed under the same Department of Health and Family Welfare, the two arms — academic and administrative — have not evolved with equal weight. Senior lecturers, associate professors, and principals in nursing education institutions, who will shoulder the immense responsibility of training future nurses, will remain in limbo when compared to their administrative peers in the Directorate.
This disparity is not merely symbolic. It manifests in unequal pay scales, grade pay, service benefits, promotion pathways, and institutional recognition. A Principal of a Government Nursing College, for instance, with decades of experience and a master’s or doctoral degree, will hold neither parity in pay nor in protocol with an officer of equivalent responsibility in the Directorate. This misalignment — a birth defect, so to speak — will create a systemic imbalance unless adequately addressed now.
It may be brought to the notice of those who are in the Directorate (Nursing Division) that the Principal of Government General Colleges in Meghalaya is equivalent to the Deputy Director in the Directorate of Higher and Technical Education (DHTE). Another classic example is that the Principal of the upcoming Shillong Government College of Engineering which offers a 4 years Professional Degree Course is equivalent to the Joint Director in DHTE which is Level 19 of the State Pay. Clearly, there are no clashes in the clarity of roles and responsibilities of both the Colleges and the Directorate. Those in the Directorate (Nursing Division) perhaps do not realize that Nursing is a Professional and not a General study.
Furthermore, this anomaly beginning at the top percolates down to the pay disparity of the proposed positions of Assistant Professors, associate professors, Professors, and Tutors. This is clearly not an institutional oversight but an intentional negligence by those in the Directorate who are involved in framing the service rules for the Nursing Colleges.
This anomaly may have come either because of the presupposition of the officers in the Directorate that there will clashes in the protocols in the Nursing Cadre or their unwillingness to shed their pride “How can they be equal to us?” or “Who will control them?” and so on and so forth. Whatever the case is, the upcoming Nursing Colleges will be launched without a clear framework.
The consequences will be far-reaching. Young nursing professionals are now discouraged from entering teaching roles, faculty retention is weakening, and the morale within nursing colleges will dip. At a time when Meghalaya — and India — desperately needs well-trained nurses, the very institutions tasked with preparing them are being structurally sidelined.
“There must be political and bureaucratic will to correct this defect. Nursing educators at this juncture are not asking for more — they are silently acknowledging that they deserve fairness”. However, because of the regimental training received, these poor nurses have only learned to submit to their bosses and not to question them.
As the nursing colleges in Meghalaya start and continue to grow in number and responsibility, the question remains: How long will they be expected to function with a defect at birth?
The silence and unwillingness to resolve matters now will, over time, become a norm and the future generation will pay a heavy price. Those in power now will retire soon and perhaps that is what they want – “let those who come after us resolve this issue!” Retire they will, but with a long-lasting legacy that they have failed the Nurses by not addressing the issue at the time of conception, and hence a serious defect at birth.