[Bengia Ajum]
ITANAGAR, 8 Jun: The secondary education directorate has regularised the service of 118 trained graduate teachers (TGT) of the erstwhile Rastriya Madhaymik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), working under the integrated scheme for school education (ISSE).
This was done following a departmental promotion committee (DPC) meeting held on 3 April. This is one of the largest batches of contractual teachers whose jobs have been regularised in recent years.
Earlier, in 2020, the education department had regularised the service of 292 primary teachers (PRT). In 2021, the services of as many as 200 PRTs and 200 TGTs were regularised.
Further, the education department regularised the service of 48 TGTs in 2021.
“We are in the process of regularising the service of some more teachers in the coming months. The DPCs will be conducted and, based on it, they will be regularised. These teachers have worked hard for so many years as contractual teachers and they will be regularised batch-wise in the coming years,” said a senior official of the department.
Recently, the All Arunachal Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan Teachers’ Association (AASSATA) had sought the second phase of regularisation of the SSA (ISSE) teachers, stating that there is a “backlog of posts from 2019 to 2023.”
The association had informed that currently there are 6,240 SSA (ISSE) teachers in the state, among whom 4,036 are PRTs and 2,004 are TGTs.
Prior to the 2019 assembly election, the ruling BJP had in its manifesto promised to regularise the service of the teachers – including the vocational teachers recruited under the erstwhile RMSA – working under the ISSE, in a phased manner.
However, the AASSATA has alleged that the government has been slow in carrying out the regularisation process, thereby creating huge backlogs.
Last month, the All Arunachal Vocational Education Teachers’ Association had alleged that the government had not regularised a single contractual vocational teacher while carrying out the regularisation process.
Altogether 187 vocational teachers are serving in the state under the ISSE in the education department. These vocational teachers were appointed under the erstwhile RMSA, starting from 2015.
