Meghalaya Govt warns to take stern action against SMCs if agitating SSA teachers are not back in schools

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJuly 20, 2022

Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui on Wednesday said the state government will be left with no option but to take drastic action against the school managing committees (SMCs) if the SSA teachers continue to protest in the streets by depriving students of their rights to education.

Rymbui has requested the SSA teachers to resume their classes since the state government had complied with all requirements and is waiting for the Centre to release the first installment for clearing their five months’ pending salary.

“If they don’t resume classes, we have no other option but to either issue an order of no work, no pay or we will withdraw the grant to the SMCs for those schools which are closed inspite of repeated requests by the government of Meghalaya,” he said.

He said the government will not shy away from its responsibility to solve the issue at hand but there are limitations to anything and the limitation is that we have to work together.

He said that the government is committed to streamline the system and take measures to ease the burden and pressure on the teachers.

Thousands of SSA teachers are staging their ongoing indefinite sit-in-demonstration to protest against the government’s failure to release their five months’ pending salary.

Rymbui said that as and when the Centre releases the first installment, the state government will immediately release to the SMCs for the payment of salary to the teachers.

The education minister said that communication with the education ministry is every now and then that the government of Meghalaya needs the Centre to release the first installment. As of now, we have not got the information exactly as to when they will release the funds but we got the reply that releasing of funds is under process.

Rymbui also recalled that when the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance took over the government in 2018, there was also a pending salary of four to five months but in the month of March that year, through intervention of the government, the state got an adhoc release of over Rs 135 crore with which the pending dues was cleared.

When asked, the education minister said that the government’s mind is very clear that as of now it does not have the capacity to absorb all the teachers into the education department but it is still trying.

“As I said we are trying to streamline the education department to reduce the categories of teachers but this cannot be done in just one or three years as it involves a massive funding so as of now we have to see,” he said.

“During the last month when we increased/enhanced the salary for adhoc teachers, you will see that the intention of the government (was to ensure) the disparity between salary of teachers will not be that much. Therefore, we are working in the right direction but that direction we cannot complete in one or three years,” Rymbui said.