Will upgrading the government school infrastructures address the issue of proxy teachers in the state? The Morung Express asked the readers last week.
While many were of the view that upgrading school infrastructures will help curb the menace, the clear majority said it won’t make any difference.
“Although it's a matter of basics to have good infrastructure, it's not a one stop solution to ensure quality education. Many in towns with good infrastructure and residing in the same town itself still keep proxy with the approval of the head,” a reader commented.
This is a clear indication of how the culture of proxy teachers exists in the state. What is more concerning is the case with the phobia of ‘hard posting’ where people tend to resort to keeping proxies for their duties.
'Severe rules and regulations’ have been looked at as a way to contain the menace of proxy teachers. Voices should have been louder from NGOs, students’ body or town/village councils, others argued. In unison they have voiced that the government must initiate firm action against proxy teachers.
With the rise in cases of proxy teachers, the one obvious syndrome that stems up is that of ‘transfer phobia’. This can be considered as a fundamental cause of endemic corruption pervading in the Naga society for now. People are resorting to extra efforts in saving themselves from ‘hard posting’ or trying hard for ‘preferable posting place’.
This has now become the source of corruption and political influence in appointments, promotions and transfers and the fundamental conundrum for the government employees. While, humanitarian, family and other considerations are a deciding factor for many such considerations in terms of desired location for posting, it has to move beyond that.
This undoubtedly has given birth to ‘absentees’, ‘officials in capital’, not to forget ‘proxy teachers/staffs’ and more seriously ‘measures taken to stop individual transfer’. One practice very prominent in the case of Nagaland is the system of ‘recommendation letters’ from politicians which happens to form the basis of transfers.
No application for a transfer to a lucrative location is reportedly processed without such letters, this is the general understanding in the society spoken silently but widely. Interestingly, the authorities in most departments record these letters in their minutes and process on that.
At times, transfers occurred with cajoling up to political bigwigs and others in the decision making scenario. For cushy jobs and others incentives, thus, often bureaucrats and other government entities are assumed to be complacent to the wishes of political compulsions. As such the transfer phobia often determine how the concerned official interacts with political bigwigs and other entities.
In all, are we prepared enough to give a tough fight to the corrupt practices starting from our family and relatives? The moment we take it on us to deal with this dilemma, we can as a society claim that we have done our bit to contain the menace of corruption. In this light, one of the measures to control corruption is also to check the practice of ‘transfer – posting’.
