Nongpoh MLA Mayralborn Syiem today raised issues concerning the teachers of Meghalaya, especially SSA teachers who have often been in the news over the past few years due to wage issues.
Syiem said that despite the efforts made by state and central governments regarding the SSA teachers, their issues remain unresolved. He mentioned about the teachers sometimes failing to receive their salaries for months on end and this requires timely intervention of the state and central governments, with a corpus fund created by Meghalaya for instances when the Centre is late with releasing the salaries.
Syiem further urged the government to regularise the SSA posts, perhaps in a phase-wise manner.
In reply, Education Minister Rakkam Sangma said that the state government is aware of the series of SSA teacher demands such as, state budget provision for them, enhancement of salary, merging SSA teachers into the Education Department, constitution of Education Commission, filling up vacant SSA posts and regularisation.
The Centre has recently released an installment for SSA teachers’ salaries and this will be passed on by the state very soon, Sangma said.
The minister added that the Meghalaya government has been doing all it can for the education sector despite numerous challenges. “To imply that the state is doing less and is clueless about the concerns of teachers is an unfair and partial statement,” he stated.
Despite all the teacher protests (fourth teachers, deficit and ad hoc teachers have all been unhappy about pay), the vast majority of the state’s education budget goes in paying salaries. 2023-24 will be no different – the government has allocated Rs 2,884 crore for education, out of which Rs 2,015 crore is for paying teachers.
Putting the blame on the central government for the shortfall in SSA teachers’ pay, Sangma said that in 2021-22, the Centre was meant to release Rs 305.84 crore and the state’s share was Rs 30.19 crore. However, New Delhi only paid out Rs 271.71 crore, forcing the state to make up the difference. A similar scenario has taken place in subsequent financial years, he stated.
On the issue of regularisation of SSA teachers, Sangma said, “The School Managing Committees of all the SSA schools are the appointing authority and not the state government and the recruitment of SSA teachers is executed by the School Managing Committee. Therefore, the recruitment policy of the state government does not permit the regularisation of contractual teachers. The contract of service is signed between the managing committee and the teachers of SSA schools.”
He further emphasised that the proposal to end the problems of SSA teachers in terms of salary solely depends on the funds/sanction given by the central government. However, the state government is proposing to take these matters from a wider perspective to address the problems of teachers of all categories.
