School teachers in Manipur are reported to have started to protest on the first day of the commencement of Higher Secondary Examinations on Monday, 18th February 2019. The Teachers were serving under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA). The agitation was conducted in front of the offices of the state’s education department.
The Council of Higher Secondary Education Manipur (COHSEM), conducting the examination were confronted with a shortage of teachers, creating problems further for Class XI Examinations.
It was reported that the HSC Examination will consist of 28,945 students breaking into 7,553 in Arts stream, 20,728 in Science stream and 664 in Commerce stream appearing for the examination in over 100 exam centers. The Exam is scheduled to end on March 20, 2019.
The Board has formed 100 flying squads in order to prevent the examination process from malpractices, the squads consist of SSA and RMSA teachers. The different squads are instructed to reach their respective examination centers 30 minutes earlier. For sensitive examination centers, the Board has appointed special task forces.
Due to this protest, the Board felt a shortage of teachers during the examinations since these teachers were appointed as flying squads across 100 centers.
Ph Mantri, controller of examinations COHSEM informed that these HSC examinations are not hampered due to the protest, but in future, the management will be heavily hampered.
“We had to engage council staff to fill in the gaps yet we are not being to do so. We are doing all that we can to conduct the exam smoothly. But we are being pushed to the limit,” said Ph Mantri.
He asked the education department heading under the govt to come to a mutual solution for these strikes to go off.
The Joint SSA and RMSA Teachers’ Association decided to agitate against the school and education department on February 4, shutting down the offices of the education department demanding a mutual solution to the irregular payment system and introduce promotion facilities.
M Khogendra Singh, executive member of the association said, “Manipur government should immediately act to fulfill our demand to facilitate us like other regular employees as we were recruited as regular teachers.”
The Association informed 990 teachers were appointed during 2011-16 for serving under RMSA, while during 2012-2016 over 2460 teachers were appointed working under SSA.
The Association claimed that their Salaried have been pending from over 7-8 months now, and none of the promotion facilities are being given.
“Our salaries have been pending for 7-8 months now. We have been facing various problems in running our families. Sometimes we even struggled to meet the transport cost of going to schools,” Singh added.
The Banners released during the protest claimed ‘No Pay No Work’, Stop discriminating RMSA and SSA teachers’, ‘Don’t give false promises, we too have families’, ‘Don’t betray the builders of the nation’.
A Memorandum, that consists of Charter filled with demands has already been submitted to the Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh and were also circulated among the education minister, education commissioner and its director.
The Association stated the department to provide solutions by February 2, failing which the association will start to agitate against them and shutting down the work which will be effective immediately.