Dear Editor,
Through your daily, I would like to pour out my discontentment, displeasure and grievances as an insecure and hopelessly frustrated employee, parent and teacher under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
I have been serving you and the society since last 7-15 years , rendering my duty honestly, selflessly and sincerely with a meager salary that too without any allowances or incentives. All these years I have received as incentives are social discrimination, criticisms through social media, job in-security, months without salary leading to debt-trap and above all step-motherly treatment from your end.
Teachers being called as social engineers’ value the importance of imparting quality education, therefore I complied with the NCTE guidelines and govt. instruction that ‘Teacher’ should be trained. We underwent B.ed and D.El.Ed programmes accordingly. And again, Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) was mandated as a requisite qualification to be a teacher under Elementary Education, and we made compliance with the govt. notification accordingly.
Despite being trained and having years of teaching experiences, we are deprived of job security. Government and the department of elementary education has not yet formulated any concrete mechanism to regularise SSA teachers.
December last 2017, hundreds of teachers were illegally appointed from in-service SSA teachers under department of elementary education with involvement of corrupt means and later cancelled due to complaint received from senior in-service teachers.
My question to you is why are you still silent without rectifying the last anomalies?
If you have the provision to regularise hundreds of 2015-17 batches of SSA teachers through illegal means than why are you reluctant to initiate mass regularisation for teachers who have been serving for last minimum of 5 years through proper cabinet decision?”
Our woes do not end here. Recently, modalities for regularization of contractual teachers under erstwhile SSA and RMSA are being circulated in whatsapp.
Though RMSA came into force in 2009, in our State it was implemented in the year 2015. Going through this modality prepared, most of the RMSA teachers whose service length is just nearly 3 years will be regularised earlier than SSA teachers who are serving since 7-15 years.
According to it, even the 2008 batches may get a chance if there may be, after 6-8 years from now. How do the concerned authorities justify this?
The sad part is I have crossed the age-limit and most of the colleagues too. And others are at the verge of crossing the age-limit very soon.
If the numbers of SSA are large then why not regularization be initiated in two-leg method, i.e, both TET and non-TET be taken for regularization by maintaining certain percentage? There must be blanket ban of fresh recruitment under department of elementary education until and unless the contractual teachers are regularized.
Our neighbouring States have regularised more than 10000(ten thousand) SSA teachers by now. But our State has regulrised around 694 since 2001 till date.
Although I have fallen again in debt-trap this academic session for my children’s admission, I still have a ray of hope that you both will take up and initiate our mass regularization within a very short time period. And put a halt to increasing nepotism and corruption in the recruitment of Teachers for a better tomorrow.
Yours,
An aggrieved SSA teacher