Shillong, April 15: The Meghalaya SSA Schools Association (MSSASA) on Tuesday asked the state government to grant three weeks’ time to SSA schools, which are unwilling to submit NOC for handing over to the education department, to come up with a decision on the matter.

A memorandum in this regard was submitted by delegation of the association to the Commissioner & Secretary in-charge Education, Vijay Kumar Mantri, following the recent directives of the department to handover or merge the management of SSA schools managed by community, private organization, individuals, mission or society to the department.

MSSASA president, Aristotle C. Rymbai, informed that some SSA schools are yet to submit their consent or are unwilling to do so due to difficulties in convincing their School Management Committees (SMCs).

“We understand that this process can be complex, and these schools may require more time to consider their options. In light of this, we request you to grant such schools a period of 3 weeks till May 5, 2025 to come up with a decision regarding their willingness to submit an NOC for handing over to the government and to issue a clear guidelines from the education department to ensure a smooth implementation of the proposed initiatives,” he stated in the memorandum.

The association has also submitted its suggestions in light of the Government of India’s norm and guidelines that Government of India does not differentiate SSA schools from government schools and there will be no separate teachers as sanctioned by the Centre, rather, all teachers are ultimately the responsibility of the state government and refer to Meghalaya Right to Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules 2011 sub-rule (1) of rule 18 which states: “the state government or local authority, shall notify terms and conditions of service and salary and allowances of teachers in order to create a professional and permanent cadre of teachers” and SSA Framework of implementation’s Revised norms clearly states: “State should maintain a unified teaching cadre and no separate SSA cadre is permissible as all teachers are ultimately to be borne by the state/UT’s government”, which clearly indicates that all posts have to be borne by the state and should be engaged with permanent and professional teachers belonging to a unified cadre.

The association has suggested the need for education department to process the SSA schools that have willingly submitted their consent for NOC to be handed over their management to the government. “These schools have expressed their willingness to be taken over, and we believe that this process should move forward to ensure a smooth transition.”

The MSSASA also suggested that “In such SSA schools were the SMCs is unwilling to handover the management of the SSA schools to the education department, SSA teachers appointed and teaching in such schools should be allowed to continue their service up to the period of their retirement and should be entitled with the remuneration equivalent to regular scale of pay to be assigned to SSA teachers, who are to be regularized and recognized by the education department,” adding “Or, alternative that those SSA teachers in such schools shall be provided with the Grant-in-Aid by the government of Meghalaya with a pay structure of at least basic pay plus dearness allowance (DA) in regular scale and an annual increase of remuneration @3% per annum.”

“Exception for those teachers who are in SSA schools with zero or single digit or less enrolment, we request and suggest that these teachers should be shifted to a better enrolment schools with less teachers either to government schools or SSA schools for both lower primary and upper primary section,” it further stated.

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