Contractual teachers will again petition the Meghalaya High Court to win back their jobs after even after their petition for reinstatement was quashed.
Contractual teachers across the state were thrown out of their jobs after the state government decided not to renew their teaching contracts. Due to the sudden ruling of the education minister, some of these teachers, who have been working in their posts for the past eight to nine years, were rendered jobless.
The criteria for these teachers to retain their jobs, was that they should pass the MTET examination that was conducted last year across the state. Unfortunately, majority did not qualify.
The MTET exams itself had papers leaked which led to a FIR being filed in Tura. While the investigation into the matter was apparently completed, the government failed to furnish the report to the Court. The teachers contend that the entire exercise needed to be redone and they be given another chance.
“In this day and age of social media, how long will it take for the papers to reach everyone? The examination was compromised but the government chose to still take out the results and choose teachers on a leaked examination. How is that fair to anyone,” asked Torin K Marak, president of the contractual teachers association of NGH.
They further questioned as to how people were able to secure high marks despite not clearing DIET, calling it a feature of the paper leak that took place. The state government only withheld the results for the Dadenggre sub division though most of the candidates from Dadenggre gave their exams in Tura.
“The difficulty we faced was that we were competing against a younger group of aspirants most of who already had advanced knowledge. We had our jobs as teachers to look at on a daily basis and it made studies extremely difficult,” said EGH secretary for the contractual teachers’ association, Asilbirth Marak.
Marak said their sacrifice in the teaching profession was proving to be costly to their future as they now had nothing in terms of government jobs to look forward to as most of them were already over age.
“We met all the NCTE norms for our jobs and even spent two years in DIET. When were chosen we were qualified. How can we now be unqualified for the post despite giving years of service for the benefit of students,” they asked?
Incidentally the teachers in 2017 had to even go through an enhancement test for those teachers who had not secured 45 per cent.
“We were even made to finish the DElEd course and enhancement to improve our marks. So why were these done when we were going to be thrown out this way,” they questioned.
Currently the teachers have stated that they were consulting with their lawyers on the way forward.
“We will continue to fight as this is gross injustice to all of us and we have families to look after. What are we supposed to do now after our teaching jobs,” asked the teachers.
