Ad hoc teachers are unlikely to see all their demands met by the state government, if today’s comments by Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma are anything to go on.
The ad hoc teachers’ body – Federation of All School Teachers of Meghalaya (FASTOM) – is demanding a salary hike and eventually bringing them under the deficit system of government-supported schools. Yesterday, FASTOM waited in vain for a meeting with the CM only to be told that he was out of town.
Even if that meeting had taken place, it is unlikely that the teachers would have heard anything to their liking.
Today, Sangma said that the financial implications of FASTOM’s demands are huge, running into hundreds of crores of rupees.
“Therefore it is not a decision that one can take, especially with the Covid-19 situation that we faced, which resulted in a lot of financial challenges,” the CM said. “Not only that, it will also affect multiple sectors, so we cannot simply say that we’ll take one decision here and expect that it will not have a multiplier effect in other sectors also.”
However, as he is sympathetic to the plight of the teachers, he has instructed the Education Department and others to look into all the options to find a way forward.
“Once I have a meeting with all of the officials and see what the options are and call the Finance Department … I will call them (FASTOM) for discussions and figure out how to move forward,” Sangma stated.
