Shillong, August 24: Commissioner & Secretary of Education D P Wahlang in a conversation with reporters after meeting with the the Joint Action Committee of All Teachers Association of Meghalaya (JACATAM) leaders said that ‘Provincialisation of Teachers’ services is not acceptable due to the current financial constraints of the state government.
“We have made it very clear to them during the meeting that porovincialisation of teachers’ services in one go entails extra expenditure of 400 crores for the government and this is not acceptable as per the governments financial resources,” he said.
He however said that step by step improvement for the conditions of the teachers through various interventions will be initiated by the government.
“If we take into consideration those teachers in various schools which are not aided by the government it will take more than 650 crores minimum to porovincialise their services,” he said.
He informed that during the meeting the government officials have also requested the leaders of JACATAM to call off their 14 day long agitation for the sake of the students because even the students have a right to be educated.
Stating that the appointing authority for teachers is the Managing Committee (MC) and not the state government he said, “All these schools are private aided schools and it is wrong for the government to give appointments in private aided schools.”
He however said that the role of the government is to improve the service condition of teachers and post retirement benefits etc.
He further informed that in the state there are only three categories of schools which include government schools, deficit schools, adhoc schools while the rest are private and unaided schools.
Wahlang said, “Some MC have also come to us stating that if the government wants to porovincialise the teachers services they will have no problem but they will close down their schools and will not be needing further aide from the government.”
