Agitating contractual teachers call off indefinite protest after Meghalaya Govt allows them to reappear for MTET examination

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaOctober 7, 2022

Contractual teachers under the banner of the Meghalaya Government Lower Primary Contractual Teachers’ Association (MGLPCTA) on Friday called off their indefinite protest after the state government has assured to grant age condonation for them to reappear in the MTET examination.

The decision was taken after a meeting convened by the education minister Lahkmen Rymbui.

Speaking to reporters, Rymbui told reporters that he had conveyed to the delegation of the contractual teachers that regularization of their services is out of question and that only one-time condonation of age could be granted to them for appearing the MTET.

“We will help them (by granting) the age condonation as per law but beyond that it will be a contempt of court order,” he said.

He said a judgment passed by the Meghalaya High Court had stated that the “contractual teachers have no rights for regularization”.

According to him, the decision was taken as many of the teachers are already on the wrong side of the age for the recruitment process.

Rymbui said, “The question was asked when MTET was mandated since 2010 why we conducted it in 2019, this is because we don’t want to discontinue the services of the contractual teachers and we want them to attain the minimum qualification set up by the NCTE.”

Asked, the education minister said he wanted the department to complete the roster system so that examination can be conducted for the vacant teacher posts across the state.

According to him, there are over 2,000 youth, who have met all qualification and waiting to enter the teaching profession in the state.

“Let us hope in the next few weeks we could be able to complete roster system and advertise for the posts and complete the recruitment process,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rymbui, who is also the home minister of the state, said that the home department has sought a report from the district administration on the tear-gas incident.

“The home department is seeking a report from the district administration so that we will know the true picture of what had happened yesterday as there are two sides of the matter – one is that section 144 CrPC is being imposed and permission to take out protest march was not granted and inspite of that there was violation. Therefore, all these things will come up (in the report),” he said

He also assured “If any person violate the law, we are here not to protect anybody but due legal process will follow.”

The home minister admitted that the law enforcing agency should use minimum intervention to see that any disturbance or any incidents should not create unnecessary difficulty to anybody even as reiterated that action will be taken as per the report submitted by the district administration.

Later while informing the decision of the teachers to call off the indefinite protest, president of the MGLPCTA Birbor Riangtem informed that the Supreme Court has also passed an order allowing the contractual teachers to reappear for the MTET examination without taking into consideration that “we are overage”.

“There were also relaxations in many aspects which include cut off marks. We are quite happy with the order of the apex court,” he said.

When asked, Riangtem said the state government has also agreed to grant them with age condonation so that they are eligible to appear for MTET.

“During the meeting with Rymbui, we told him that we are too old to go for MTET but he said if they help (in this regard) it will only put the government in trouble. Therefore, the government has decided to relax the age for such teachers,” he said.

He said the Assam government had conducted special TET exams for over 50,000 teachers for regularization. However, those who failed to clear the exam were allowed to continue on contractual basis.