CM's assurance to JACATAM

OUR STAFF CORRESPONDENT

SHILLONG, March 6: Meghalaya Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma gave the assurance to the teachers who met him today evening under the aegis of Joint Action Committee of All Teachers’ Association of Meghalaya (JACATAM) that all the issues flagged by them would be looked into by the government.

The main subject of the meeting revolved around the concern of the teachers in bringing about uniformity in the salary structure and the need to minimize the categories of schools as there are too many categories as of now which create a lot of confusion.

The need to look at the meager salaries of the teachers was also discussed and the Chief Minister told the Association that in preceding years, whenever it was possible based on resources, the government had been able to margilly increase the quantum of assistance for the teachers as salaries. However, as far as this year is concerned he gave them complete background of the fiscal position of the State in view of the unforeseen fall in the revenue realization because of the sudden fall in trade on coal as a fallout of the NGT ruling.

Therefore although the government would be willing to look at all their demands, it would not be in a position to because of the unforeseen fall in resources.

Regarding the need to minimize the categories of schools, the Chief Minister informed the Association that the government had already directed the departments concerned to examine the possibilities of how best they could attend to this agenda to bringing all the schools into the same category. He also admitted the fact that it was difficult to make the Fince Commission understand what all these different categories of schools were about.

The JACATAM also apprised Dr Sangma on various issues concerning the magement of various categories of schools and issues of syllabus and the concerns of ensuring that parents of the State to have access to quality, affordable education were also discussed during the meeting and he assured them that all these issues would be looked into and that they would meet again regarding these issues sometime soon.