Kohima, October 12 (MExN): The state Department of School Education (DoSE) on Monday reiterated its appeal to the NSF and ENSF to withdraw its agitation in support of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) teachers of 2010 and 2013 batches.
In a press release issued through the DIPR, the DoSE presented ‘factual position so as to set the issue in the right perspective and also enable the general public to understand the problem in a more holistic manner.’
It said that as of now there are 1,990 Government Schools in the State with the total enrollment of 1,69,548 and the number of teachers are 19,265. There are 6 Government Schools with zero enrollment and 32 Schools with zero percent pass percentage in HSLC.
“The requirement of teachers in Government Schools are now about 9,000 whereas the present total strength inclusive of SSA and RMSA teachers are coming to about 20,000 and this is now a huge burden to the State,” it said, while pointing out that “there are some schools with many teachers without any student and there are also schools where teachers are more than students.”
It acknowledged the Cabinet decision of October 3, 2018, where the state Cabinet decided in principle to bring the teachers into the mainstream of the School Education cadre with a condition that all the schools will be linked with bio-metric attendance and Aadhar number of all teachers will be linked to the same. The Cabinet also directed the Department to club/merge all neighbouring schools which are not performing, producing nil results or have negligible enrolment, it said.
The Department was also directed to work out optimum number of teachers required as per enrolment and to “frame guidelines or find a feasible solution to give golden handshake to the teachers who are under qualified or untrained teachers.”
Stating that the department is in the process of fulfilling ‘certain conditions’ given in the Cabinet decision, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and ‘other constraints,’ the DoSE said that it had already apprised the representatives of NSF & ENSF of the status of the issue at hand on September 10.
The issue was also reviewed at the level of the Chief Secretary on September 14 and on October 6, and the actions taken by the department to fulfil the conditions stipulated in the Cabinet decision of October 5, 2018, were deliberated, it said.
In another meeting chaired by the Chief Secretary on October 9, the position and the status of the issue were explained to the NSF and the ENSF and a request to reconsider and withdraw the proposed agitation was made, it said.
Further, the DoSE underscored that the 2010 and 2013 batches of SSA & RMSA teachers were “recruited through respective District Selection Boards and it took the department considerable time to undertake massive exercise to cross check the records.”
It said that comments of the Personnel & Administrative Reforms and Finance Departments have since been received and the DoSE is now in the process of submitting the issue to the Cabinet.
It maintained that the DoSE is “doing whatever is possible in spite of various constraints and keeping in view of the COVID-19 pandemic situation,” it reiterated its request to the student organisations to “to understand the difficulties being faced by the State and withdraw the agitation in the interest of all stakeholders.”
