By our Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, March 14: After teaching high school students for more than 33 years the in-charge headmaster of a recognized but venture high school in Guwahati is set to be known as a ‘tutor’ at the fag-end of his service life. What the in-charge headmaster feels now is – as though the new school provincialization bill that was passed by the State Assembly recently has robbed him of his long-felt status ‘teacher’, but thereby hangs a tale.
Jajatiya Night High School was set up in 1965 at Kacharibasti in the city. In 1980, the ME section of the school was provincialized, leading to the bifurcation of the school as – Jajatiya Night High School and Jajatiya ME School. Since then the high school has been lying as a venture school. In the meantime, in 1987 the word ‘night’ has been shrugged off from its mes, reducing the me of the school to – Jajatiya High School – when it got the permission to open class IX. The school, however, was recognized by the government in 1992 only to leave it without being provincialized even today.
Now the school is located at RK Mission Road, Ulubari.
It so happened that in the provincialization of schools, the me of this school also figured in the list in 2015, but it failed to get provincialization.
However, the sad state of affairs in the tale is that the new school provincialization Bill that has been passed by the State Assembly recently has rendered the in-charge headmaster of Jajatiya High School Somindrath Haloi and the likes of him in large number to be provincialized as ‘tutors’, not as ‘teachers’.
Haloi said: “The headmaster of the school is Mr. Rajen Boro. He’s suffering from paralysis, and as such I had to take the mantle as the in-charge headmaster. Mr Boro will retire on December 31 this year. I’ll follow suit in 2019. It’s sad to say that I’ll retire as a ‘tutor’, not as a ‘teacher’. We would feel our chest puffed up with pride hearing people calling us teachers. I’m a teacher by choice. Had I been working as a domestic servant for the past 33 years, I would have been at least the head servant with right payment. I feel shy telling my family members that I’m going to school. I’ve stopped doing private tuition. I’m running my family by selling the little property left behind by my father.”
Haloi said that another teacher, Minoti Baruah, superannuated in 2014 without her post being provincialized.