The Plight of SSA teachers
By: Nadeem Shah
The SSA teachers have persistently been at loggerheads with the state government over numerous issues from the last few years. This year the salaries of 40000 odd teachers are on hold since the last 4 months and their stories trickling out on social media are heart-breaking to say the least. A teacher has no money to buy life-saving drugs for his cancer-stricken father, another debt-ridden teacher can’t manage two square meals for his kids, can’t pay their school fees, leave alone repaying his loan to Bank.
These teachers have threatened to go on indefinite strike if their rightful demands are not met. The issue at the center of the current stalemate is the Seventh Pay Commission. They are demanding the benefits of commission but the state government has categorically stated they are mere “contractual employees” and these benefits can’t be extended to them, conveniently negating the fact that Chief Minister Mehooba Mufti herself, from time to time, handed out regularization orders to hundreds of these teachers. And the previous government led by Omar Abdullah had granted the benefits of Sixth Pay Commission to them.Concurrently, they also demand delinking of their salaries from the central to the state budget.
Since 2015 the PDP alliance has been relentlessly hounding the ReTs. The then education minister Naeem Akhtar called for the scrutiny of their documents after it had come to fore that a ReT teacher from Jammu province had obtained his job on the basis ofa fake degree. Later he sought to test their capabilities through a screening test. The incensed ReTs hit roads in protest against the statement that doubted their credentials and credibility. In one such confrontation a teacher was hit by a teargas shell in his eye and had to be shifted to Amritsar for specialized treatment.
To his credit Altaf Bukhari after taking over from Naeem Akhtar got the screening order revoked but not before offending them with his remark, “If I open my mouth it will hurt the sentiments of teachers.”
On January 11, 2017, Haseeb Drabu, during his budget speech, referring to the SSA and RMSA teachers, acknowledged the fact that these employees don’t get their salaries for months on end due to the delay in the release of funds from the central government. In what he called a “bold decision” he had stated, “I am delinking the disbursement of salary from the source of funding of salary. With this, the misery of thousands of people who do an honest day’s job will be a memory of the past.” Thatpromise was never fulfilled.
The incumbent education minister Choudhari Zulfikar Ali maintaining the same old line of SSA teachers being contractual employees called it a 18 year old ‘disease’ which can’t be cured overnight.
The state government has consistently been doing this flip-flop with the aggrieved teachers discrediting years of their hard work and toil.
SSA is an Indian Government flagship programme aimed at the universalization of elementary education making free and compulsory education to children between the ages of 6 to 14 a fundamental right.The programme was launched in the State of J&K in the year 2002-03.
In 2008 the first batch of these teachers was regularized under the chief ministership of Ghulam Nabi Azad.Pertinently, since 2013 no fresh appointments have been made under this scheme.
These teachers were recruited for the implementation of SSA scheme on a monthly remuneration of 1500-3000 rupees for a period of five years after they were regularized taking into account their performance. However, the state government maintains that these teachers were illegally regularized by the previous dispensation.
Over the years from time to time the services of ReT teachers were utilized in various capacities like censusrelated work in their own villages and election duty. During the unrest of 2016 when several educational institutions were burned down by unknown arsonists, the state government directed the teachers to safeguard their respective schools. Their stature was reduced to the level of chowkidars.
In their respective schools they not only have to look after their own domain i.e., teaching but also undertake non-teaching work like ferrying eatables from ZEO offices, arrange vegetables for mid-day meals and construction work of school buildings.In most cases the mid-day meal funds are released after months and these teachers have to bear the expenses for buying the eatables from their own pockets.
This preoccupation with such clerical work has put an unnecessary burden on theseteachers which in turn has taken a toll on academic activities.
A close friend who has done B.Ed, M.Ed and M.A and happens to be a ReT teacher dejectedly confided in me last week that he was contemplating giving up this thankless job. He comes from a family of bakers who have a flourishing business in North Kashmir. He said he wanted to join his father in business instead of losing his precious years in this uncertain job.
But not every SSA teacher can afford such a luxury of choosing a different career path at this point in time of their lives. Most of them are in their 30s now, married and have families to support.The blame for playing with lives and careers of these teachers have to be pinned on both the PDP and NC governments. Both the parties have played a dubious role in the creation of this problem for their vote bank politics.
But the issue at hand can’t be brushed under the carpet anymore.
The conditionof these teachers is desperate for all to see. The Eid is just round the corner, while most of the parents are hastening to buy new clothes for their children, these teachers can’t even afford to give Eidi to their kids. The cruelty meted out to these helpless teachers can have serious ramifications on their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing which is the last thing this embattled society needs. The state government must adopt a humane approach while dealing with this sensitive issue which has a direct bearing on the lives of these teachers, not to mention those lakhs of underprivileged children these teachers were employed to educate.
The author is a Srinagar based journalist and he can be reached at [email protected]
