Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, Aug 2: Reacting to what it termed the “indifferent attitude” of the state government towards the plight of the teachers working under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) – the erstwhile Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – the All Arunachal SSA Teachers’ Association (ISSE) announced on Thursday that it would stage a three-day dharna in Itanagar, from 8 August.
The AASSATA has been demanding that the state government regularize the jobs of the SSA teachers in batches, on the basis of seniority.
Addressing a press conference here, AASSATA president Tarak Agung Tarh claimed that, although the state government constituted a five-member committee to work on the framework and modalities of SSA/RMSA teachers’ regularization after the chief minister included the matter in his budget speech this year, “the regularization issue remained untouched in the cabinet sitting even after technical clearance.”
The committee, comprising the education secretary, the education special secretary, the elementary/secondary education director, and the SSA deputy SPD, was to look into the regularization of the SSA/RMSA teachers, and into other modalities of the schemes announced in the 2018-19 budget.
“SSA teachers are loyal in building human resource development with meagre consolidated (fixed) salaries, but we never compromised our duty in spite of several hurdles. At present, most of the teachers have crossed the age of 40 years and have no possibility of being absorbed in other jobs,” Agung Tarh said, adding that the state government has been ignoring their demands.
He said 6850 teachers working under the SSA would be joining the three-day dharna to register their protest against the government for “not adopting a tangible mechanism in spite of submission of representation.”
The AASSATA also claimed that the association had on 11 June sought “immediate acknowledgement” of the action taken report but did not get any response from the government.
On being questioned about their role in the state’s abysmal education system, as well as the students’ poor performance in the AISSCE 2018, AASSATA general secretary Techi Bollo expressed concern over the pass percentage, and said the government needs to pay more attention to elementary education.
“The government needs to adopt a mechanism to ensure quality education at the rudimentary level by emphasizing on elementary education,” said Bollo.
Attempts by this daily to contact Education Secretary Madhu Rani Teotia to verify the status of the committee working on the modalities for regularization of the SSA teachers ended in failure.
