Over 12,500 SSA elementary teachers in Meghalaya are being deprived of their rights and benefits as notified in the Right to Education Act 2009, the Meghalaya SSA School Association (MSSASA) said today.
In a press release today, MSSASA President Aristotle C Rymbai said that 12,541 teachers in over 5,000 schools in urban and rural areas have been recruited as contractual teachers rather than being appointed to permanent posts, which, he said, is against the SSA framework and guidelines.
MSSASA’s understanding of the Government of India rules is that SSA teachers should be recruited as per state government norms and should therefore receive the same benefits and pay as regular teachers, but this is not the case in Meghalaya.
Rymbai said that the state government erred in having the State Education Mission Authority Meghalaya (SEMAM) sanction teacher posts contractually instead of recruiting permanent teachers through the Department of School Education and Literacy.
Moreover, promising career prospects, which is quite a motivation booster, are almost nil for SSA teachers, he added because they are not entitled to any leave apart from 15 days’ casual leave.
He also said that SSA teachers have been without salaries since July, putting them and their families into grave difficulty during the Covid-19 pandemic.
