Shillong, Sep 2: State Congress Party leader Manuel Badwar today alleged that the Meghalaya government has quietly restructured the entire future of teaching jobs in Meghalaya through a one-page letter, without any law, Assembly debate or public announcement.
Addressing a press briefing, Badwar referred to a letter from the Education Department dated August 19, 2026 addressed to the Director of School Education and Literacy. He said the letter directs that from now until financial year 2027-28, every new appointment against a vacancy in government and deficit schools at lower primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary level will fall under the Structured Pay Framework and under SEMAM, the State Education Mission Authority of Meghalaya, subject to availability of funds.
Badwar said a young teacher joining a government school next year will do the same work as the teacher beside her but will be paid less, retire poorer and will not belong to the service she serves.
Giving figures, he said under the Structured Pay Framework a LP teacher starts at Rs 21,000 per month, UP at Rs 24,250, secondary at Rs 34,250 and higher secondary at Rs 36,500. Against this, the government pay matrix minimum for corresponding posts is roughly Rs 24,700, Rs 30,300, Rs 37,800 and Rs 42,100, besides dearness allowance and other allowances. The framework itself says it carries no automatic entitlement to those and is not regularisation and confers no government employee status.
He said this would create two teachers in one staff room doing identical work but differing in salary, allowances, retirement cover, promotion, seniority, transfer protection and disciplinary authority.
Badwar contrasted the move with statements made in the Assembly on February 17, 2026 when he said the Education Minister had stated that teachers in deficit schools would continue to receive salaries under the State Scale equivalent to regular government teachers and the Chief Minister had said the deficit category would be examined separately. On August 12, 2026, Badwar alleged, the government closed the state scale to every new recruit in every deficit and government school.
He said no serving teacher loses pay under the letter, but the instrument is attrition as every state scale post falling vacant on retirement will be refilled under the Structured Pay Framework under SEMAM, starving the regular cadre of new entrants until it empties itself.
Linking it to the Supreme Court judgment of September 1, 2025 making Teacher Eligibility Test mandatory for all in-service teachers, Badwar said the Education Minister himself had said in October last year that it would affect more than 32,000 teachers in Meghalaya.
The review petitions were dismissed on May 29 this year and the deadline extended till August 31, 2028 with no further extension. Citing UDISE Plus 2024-25 data, Badwar said that, nationally, more than 91 percent of primary teachers are trained but in Meghalaya the figure is 72 to 80 percent and around one in four teachers holds no more than higher secondary qualification. He said a very large number of posts will fall vacant by August 2028 and all will be refilled outside regular service at lower pay.
On learning outcomes, Badwar said while SSLC pass rate went from 55.8 per cent in 2024 to 87.1 per cent in 2025 and 86.84 per cent this year, Meghalaya scored 401.62 in 2022-23, 417.9 the lowest in the country, then 448 in Akanshi-3, the tenth and lowest grade with 47.2 out of 240 in learning outcomes. He said even with this year’s score of 525.71 and jump of two grades, Meghalaya is still lowest among eight North East states. He cited a cabinet minister’s statement in the Assembly on August 27 that Meghalaya is lowest in the country in learning outcomes, joint lowest with Jharkhand in equity, near bottom in access, near the lower end with Bihar in infrastructure and 0.6 per cent above the national lowest in teacher education.
Clarifying his stand, the Congress leader said that the Structured Pay Framework is good for SSA, ad hoc, Hindi Grant, Science Grant, fourth teachers and pre-primary teachers as it was an improvement for those frozen on the same pay for years. The Congress was also not saying the deficit system has been abolished but that state scale parity for newly filled vacancies is being phased out.
He acknowledged deficit and ad hoc systems were built over five decades under governments of every colour including Congress and that financial problem is real with over Rs 2,400 crore a year spent on teacher salaries and more than 14,500 schools for about 30 lakh population, of which 206 have zero enrolment and 2,269 have fewer than ten students. He said that consolidating schools reduces the number of posts, which is reform, the Structured Pay Framework reduces cost of each post, which is wage suppression.
The Congress demanded that the August 12 notification and August 17 addendum be published, August 19 letter be suspended until the Assembly debates it, and that the government provide written statement on service status, security of tenure, retirement age, promotion, leave, transfer and disciplinary rights of posts to be filled under framework, release of domain-wise Performance Grading Index scores for 2025-26, release of Meghalaya State Education Commission report chaired by Prof Sherwin May Sungoh along with action taken on pay parity recommendations and a time-bound plan for 32,000 teachers facing TET deadline of August 2028.
