Staff Reporter
SHILLONG:
All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) legislator Geroge B Lyngdoh has said that termination of the services of the contractual teachers should have been done in a thoughtful manner.
“One just cannot dis-employ people and throw them out of jobs because they may not be of the age to apply for a new job,” Lyngdoh said.
The AITC legislator said that some of the contractual teachers who had lost their jobs have been working for 15-20 years.
He said that to make them compete with the younger generations would be very unfair considering the service and hardships that they had to face to give their best to the students across the state with meagre salaries and jobs which were not permanent.
“Out of the blue the government decided to do away with their services and at the same time appoint new teachers,” he said.
Lyngdoh said that the termination should have been done in a phased manner considering the services, experience and needs of the people.
“With the rush the government went through to do away with all contractual teachers now we are in a situation where there are schools where there are many vacant posts and the government has not been able to fill these up,” the opposition MLA said.
He said that there is a situation wherein on one hand the contractual teachers are not having a job and on the other hand schools have no teachers.
Lyngdoh said that until the government is able to appoint permanent teachers at least the contractual teachers should be engaged.
He said that one has to look at different aspects of quality apart from the teaching skills of the teachers – infrastructure wise, the selection process of the teachers, training them and giving them the much-needed skill and also teaching equipment.
“If we look at a particular school sometimes they require a science lab but they don’t have the infrastructure, they don’t have the teachers nor the teaching aids,” the AITC legislator said.
According to him, the students who would be appearing for their SSLC, they are weak in mathematics and science and therefore additional support is needed for the children to understand the subjects better so they can perform better.
Lyngdoh said that there are stark situations on the ground where theoretical aspect and the perspectives of someone sitting in the administrative office in Shillong and saying quality can be achieved by just removing one and putting another by passing one examination.
“I think these are not the kind of parameters that we should look at, but various parameters one should look at and get feedback from the students,” Lyngdoh said.
The AITC legislator said that by passing a written examination and a personal interview one can become a quality teacher is a primitive way of selecting.
“Teaching has got a lot of responsibility. Skills like public relations, communication abilities with the children, all these things need to be looked at rather than just passing one examination,” Lyngdoh added.