Shillong: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Wednesday invited the agitating contractual teachers for a meeting at the state secretariat to discuss their demand to reinstate them.
“The Chief Minister has invited us for talks tomorrow (Thursday). We are hopeful that the talks would yield positive results and we will withdraw our agitation” Meghalaya Government LP Contractual Teachers’ Association (MGLPSTA) president, Birbor Riangtem said.
He added, “If the outcome of the meeting failed. We have no other option but to continue with our agitation till our demands are met. We are optimistic that the government will find a way out to resolve our genuine demand.”
The contractual teachers, who initially staged a sit-in-demand outside the Chief Minister’s bungalow on Monday, were asked to shift their protest venue near the Meghalaya Board of School Education (MBoSE) office.
The government had sacked as many as 800 contractual teachers after they failed to clear the Meghalaya Teacher Eligibility Test (MTET).
“We have been appointed in Lower Primary and Upper Primary schools from 2010 onwards to educate children. MTET was introduced in 2010, the examination was conducted only in 2019 and by that time we were over-aged and many of us were not qualified. We don’t want our children to dropout from schools,” Riangtem said.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui on Wednesday maintained that the dismissed teachers won’t be reinstated saying that the process of recruitment has already completed
“They (contractual teachers) should understand that they were appointed on a temporary basis,” Rymbui said.
