Meghalaya SSA teachers seek policy-level reform for long-term job security, fair pay

Shillong, Oct 22: President of the Meghalaya SSA Schools Association (MSSASA), Aristotle C Rymbai, on Monday said the state government in the past had failed to follow the guidelines right from the beginning leading to the problems in the implementation of the SSA program in Meghalaya.

“Before implementation of the SSA program in the country, certain guidelines have been sent by the Ministry of Education across the country including Meghalaya. Since inception the then government did not follow the norms and the guidelines. That is why the need of the hour is the government should come up with a policy to solve all these problems once and for all,” Rymbai said after meeting with the health minister Ampareen Lyngdoh and animal husbandry & veterinary minister AL Hek requesting them to support the association’s demand for the government to come up with a policy to regularise the services of over 13000 SSA teachers within two months time. So far, the delegation had met seven cabinet ministers on the matter.

“Supposed if government enhance our salary now, then in the future again the same problem will come out, that is why we suggest the government why not it come out with a policy so that the issues and problems of the SSA teachers will be solved once and for all,” he said while adding “The MSSASA has suggested to the state education commission to recommend that the government should come up with a policy to implement a pay structure for SSA teachers as per section 23 sub section 3 of RTE Act 2009 and also we have suggested that the government should implement the pay structure for SSA teachers as per revision of pay rule 2018.”

Rymbai said the officials of the education department in a meeting with the association had indicated that the government would require an additional Rs 300 crore to come up with a policy to regularise the services of the SSA teachers.

Asked, the MSSASA president said, “After we discussed at length, the minister (Ampareen) informed us that probably the cabinet meeting is scheduled to be held on October 23 and if the education department placed the cabinet memo on that day, she would support the demand made by the MSSASA pertaining to coming up with a policy to secure the services of the SSA teachers as done in other states across the country.”

Rymbai said that the association would wait till the end of the two months deadline before taking a decision on its future course of action.

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