Recently I had the privilege of attending a seminar addressed by the Hon’ble Education Minister of Nagaland where he expressed his concerns regarding the attitude prevailing among the general public in regard to opening of schools. He rightly pointed out that the purpose of opening of schools was misconstrued as an avenue for creating jobs and the real objective of providing education has been forgotten. He also frankly shared his concerns on many important issues prevailing in the education department.
I was really moved by his in-depth understanding of the affairs of the department and his desire to bring drastic changes in the way of functioning of the department. His concerns about teachers drawing salary without attending work is an important issue that needs to be addressed immediately for the uplift of the children belonging to underprivileged sections of the society. In this regard, he informed that the state government has taken a decision to revisit paying salary in cash to teachers in posting areas instead of crediting to their respective accounts. Of course we could not find any fault with the intention of the Govt. in this regard. But the consequences of this decision will badly affect most of the teachers who work sincerely for the department.
Everyone knows well that teachers have no other avenues of earning other than their monthly salary. Majority of them depends on Bank Loans for meeting most of the major expenses in life such as Children’s Education, Construction of Home, Purchasing of Cars and other items required for maintaining a decent life, Medical expenses etc. It is an established practice that the financial institutions offer loans only to those employees whose salary is routed through bank. Moreover, many employees may be tempted to spend a good amount of their salary on the way before it reaches home if it is disbursed in cash. Management of many homes goes smoothly because of the practice of crediting salary directly in to bank accounts. Another issue is about the security concerns of carrying cash in hand. Thus I feel that the decision of the government made with good intentions may end counterproductive in many ways.
I would like to remind our Hon’ble Minister of School Education about a commitment he made at the end the year 2014 regarding introducing biometric system of attendance in Govt. Schools and offices of the Education Department from the year 2015. Even though the government will have to make some initial investment for procuring the devices, it will definitely solve many problems existing in the education department. I am sure that the use of biometric attendance system is the only way to put an end to the evil practice of engaging proxy teachers and will also solve the issue of employees drawing salary without attending to their duties. In a state like Nagaland where the society looks at irregular and insincere employees as relatives and own clan’s men, technology alone could bring changes in the way of functioning of institutions and individuals.
Nellayappan B, GHSS Colony, Bhandari.
