Non-teaching staff of middle schools of Assam demand posts regularization

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The non-teaching staff of the middle schools of Assam on Wednesday said that the Assam Education (Provincialization of Services of Non-Teaching Staff of Venture Educational Institutions) Act, 2018 is discriminatory as it has no mention about the rout-map of their services being regularized. They said that there have been some discriminatory policies meant for the non-teaching staff and their teaching counterparts. Upset over the matter of not finding any clear order in the Provincialization Act, regarding regularization of their jobs from fixed salary to the level of government employee, the non-teaching staff of Assam are demanding provincialization for a total of 1,860 posts engaged in 626 ME schools.

Addressing a press conference at Guwahati Press Club on Wednesday, the All Assam Provincialization Eligible Non-Teaching Association (AAPENTA) said that the non-teaching staff engaged in 626 schools are leading their life with uncertainty as the documents of teachers have already been sent to the government by the education department for provincialization. However, even after going through the process of scrutinizing the documents of non-teaching staff along with the teachers, the documents of the former have not been sent to the government.

Talking to the media persons AAPENTA secretary Jugal Kishore Sarma claimed, “The way the Assam government is going to provincialize the posts of non-teaching staff is a matter of question. Because, as directed by the government of Assam in a letter regarding provincialization of our posts, it is clearly mentioned that our posts will be provincialized by providing fixed salary which will follow the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. The wage Act is purely an Act enacted to regulate the salary of the employees of private sectors. Hence we’ve a question that will we remain only with a fixed salary without receiving the status of full-fledged government employee as there are no mention about the criteria for the promotion of non-teaching staff.” Sarma added that the non-teaching staff are as important as teachers in the proper functioning of a school. He said, “We the non-teaching staff appeal to the Finance and Education Minister to scrap the discriminatory policy and to take necessary action to provincialize our posts.”

Also Read: TET teachers meet Bhattacharya to regularize teaching jobs

Also Watch: Five coal laden truck seized in oil town Digboi