Moa Jamir
In yet another strike over ‘yet’ another of the Government’s apathies, another stream of RMSA Teachers last week started an agitation demanding their appointment letter for the service they were elected legitimately for, after a long period of agitation and other challenges. The cycle of grievances are continuing for nearly 3 years after they first sat for written exams in May 2014.
It’s the same story again. One day it’s the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), the next day Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) followed by Hindi teachers and others - the endless cycle of victimisation by those at the helms of affairs continues the whole year round.
What ails thee, o education department? Countless but chronic symptoms with disastrous ramification for the welfare of students as well as quality of education, could be a possible retort.
While teachers are agitating, students await textbooks even as the first quarter of the academic year goes by. It doesn’t help that they are given ‘worm-infested’ rice or have to make do with makeshift shelters they lovingly call a school.
The problem is symptomatic of the desolate ‘state’ of affairs we are living in. By virtue of being more active and relatively more educated in some way, teachers voice out their grievances through various outlet. But such opportunity is seldom found in other departments.
What would you do if you were asked to work for free and your hard work compensated with delayed salary? Will you be motivated? Will you give your 100%? How can you teach the students earnestly if you are worried about how to adjust your monthly expenses with the sporadic and unpredictable salaries?
Over the years of administrative apathy and indifference, political influence and lack of coordination have resulted in the education department becoming a favourite hunting ground for political appointee or ‘backdoor’ appointments we are familiar, with every part of the State plagued by the disease.
It also reflects the lack of solidarity among teachers who fight separately against unfair practices – therefore one day it is RMSA, the other it is SSA or State education and the next is the Hindi teachers. For better or worse, the political appointees are too cowed down to lend a hand to their colleagues fearing repercussions.
Adding to the hotchpotch is the flip-flopping and random ‘cut and paste’ policy of the government which seems to be hugely dependant on ‘trial and error’ policy through the whims of the ‘concerned authority.’
For instance, while recently 45% graduation criteria was justified as appointment for any teacher and fiercely defended by the Director, the RMSA’s latest advertisement for Mathematics teacher curiously does not stipulate such criteria making one wonder whether it’s a case of acute selective amnesia or just game for controversy.
Time is ripe for the education department to put its house in order for the benefits of both of the students and the teachers. In the long run, it would accrue well to the improvement of the educational system as a whole.
It is also an opportune moment for the learned teachers to come together and put a check on two perpetual maladies affecting the profession – backdoor appointment and proxies.
Else they will always remain and get punished inadvertently under the topsy-turvy policy of the government, ominously undermining the welfare of the students as well as quality of education in Nagaland.
For any comment, drop a line to moajamir@live.com
