Shillong, Oct 23: With the SSA teachers set to protest on November 9 against government apathy, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Saturday assured to take steps to resolve the problem.
“I would like to assure our teachers that we will do everything in our capacity to try and resolve this at the earliest,” Sangma said.
He was campaigning for the NPP candidate from Mawryngkneng Pyniaid Sing Syiem at Umpling, on Saturday.
The release of pending salary for four months from June, creation of posts, shifting of all 12,541 SSA teachers from state implementation society to state education department on regular basis as per RTE Act and enhancement of salary were the demands of the SSA teachers.
“As we speak, our Additional Chief Secretary in-charge education, is in Delhi working with the government of India to release the salaries of the SSA teachers,”he said.
Admitting that the SSA teachers have been suffering for a very long time, he clarified that 90 per cent of the salaries of the SSA teachers comes from the Centre while only 10 per cent is provided by the state government.
“It is a 90:10 funded programme and until and unless we get funds from the central government, we are not able to clear the salaries of our SSA teachers and the issue has been going on for many years,” he said.
Sangma added that the Centre releases the SSA teachers’ salaries in batches for three months, five months, six months and sometimes even eight months.
“The numbers are so huge that it is not possible for the state government to simply give it out of its pocket especially when our petrol rates are the lowest in the country. So these are the challenges we face but it does not mean that we don’t care for the SSA teachers,” Sangma said.
