Kohima, June 20 (MExN): The All Nagaland Graduate Teachers Forum (ANGTF) has written to the Advisor, Department of School Education and SCERT asking for a one-time exercise to clear the backlog cases of graduate teachers (GTs) who have their promotions in stagnation.
The ANGTF said that there are serious anomalies in the seniority list of GTs owing to the department's differential treatment by applying different yardsticks for counting the seniority of GTs appointed on adhoc basis. It said that some groups of GTs had been regularized with effect from the date of appointment whereas for other groups, their services were regularized effecting from the date of regularization.
“By applying with different yardsticks for determining the service seniority of GTs, there are cases of supersession in promotion where juniors (who got regularized from date of appointment) overtake their seniors being regularized from the date of regularization. This has led to clashes of seniority among the GTs in the department,” the forum stated.
It said that on account of disputed seniority list of GTs, promotion cases could not be taken up for the past 10+ years which in turn leads to severe stagnation of GTs promotion in the department.
It informed that as far as available records in the department are concerned, there are about 300 posts of Assistant Head Masters (AHM) lying vacant (which couldn't be filled up) due to defective seniority list of GTs. “It is saddening to note that all these discrepancies/anomalies/clashes in the seniority list of GTs had been created by the Government/ Department,” it said.
The forum said that it is the bounden duty of the department authority to rectify the problems by taking necessary remedial measures. “The one and only solution is to initiate one time measure by the department authority so as to clear the backlog cases of the same once for all,” it added.
It reminded that at present the Department of School Education is under an unusual situation where on one hand senior GTs are due for promotion and on the other hand, vacancies of AHM posts are widely available to be filled up. “This rare prevailing situation in the department needs the wisdom and statesmanship of the concerned authority to tackle it by exercising the one time measure. If not it will only show the inefficiency and failure of the department to resolve the pending issue,” it said.
The forum suggested that the one-time measure exercise may be carried out in the form of promoting trained GT (who had completed 30 years and above followed by 28/29 years as per the requirement of the vacancies) to fill up the existing vacancies of AHM posts on the basis of inter seniority.
It maintained that owing to non-posting/non-filling of existing vacancies of AHM posts in the schools, many government schools across the State are running without AHM/HM.
The absence of AHM/HM (field officers) in the schools is adversely affecting the smooth functioning of the schools thereby leading to nil/poor results of HSLC Exam in many Government schools in successive years, the forum said.
