Editor,
We, in Meghalaya, are used to seeing teachers’ agitations in the streets or in public thoroughfares because they were frequently seen there since the 1980s. We used to ask ourselves, who then teaches our children at school if they are instead found here? Seeing the teachers on the streets, the common people feel strongly for them, sympathise with them and support their cause. It is their right to agitate to realise their rightful dues. But they are the thorn in the flesh of the government.
The All Primary School Teachers’ Association was the first to agitate. Then the All Meghalaya Primary School Teachers’ Association and 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 in the streets have put Meghalaya to shame before the whole country. The reasons for all these stem from the same, either non-payment of salaries or grievances relating to salaries and allowances.
It was on June 26, 1982 that the first teachers’ agitation took place under the umbrella of All Primary School Teachers’ Association (APSTA) led by its firebrand and dynamic leader, 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 Autonomous District Council. The reason for the agitation was against non-payment of five months salaries for DCLP teachers and nine months of salaries for Grant in-Aid teachers. The District Council, in spite of the protests and agitations by teachers, did not bother to clear the pending dues because it has mismanaged, misused, diverted and messed up the funds meant for teachers salaries because, the Council’s authorities at that time, had scant regard for teachers for they were appointed by them and were considered most obedient and a tamed lot.
Seeing the plight of teachers for not getting salaries for months together, the State government at that time, on February 29, 1983, through the administrators took over the DCLPs and Grant in-Aid schools first for three months then renewable for another three month every year, then 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 schools, while Contributory Provident Fund and Death Cum Retirement Gratuity to the latter category of G-in-A were extended only in 2015.
It must be made clear here that the teachers’ agitations are not over yet. The time is not long before we see them back in the street for the solutions to their grievances are not found yet. The government tries to evade lasting solutions to their problems but for how long. Release of a few months’ salaries is not the solution, in fact it is peanuts. The permanent solution is to ensure that an uninterrupted source of funds to fund the recurring salaries, 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 once the schools are financially assisted to meet the salaries of teachers that is enough and to hell with service rules and regulations. This is precisely why primary, upper primary, secondary education etc in Meghalaya is in shambles and in a mess. What happened to the primary schools set up, run and managed by the District Council for so long (for almost 30 years)? Or does the State government is jolly content just to replicate them.
Why is the foundation of our educational edifice in the State so weak and easily breakable 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 baggage that went with it in terms of budgetary allocation for infrastructure, manpower (teachers), enrollment (students), salary emoluments, etc right from day one of Meghalaya statehood and we continued foolishly with it for last 50 years. Will the new policy and law makers of 2023 see any better ways to make a difference for Meghalaya? It’s up to us voters to pick and choose from the best of many undertakers (candidates) in the fray.
