Process for provinciliasation of deficit schools, colleges under way: Rakkam Sangma
Shillong, June 5: With the government initiative to bring down the number of categories of school teachers in the state, education minister Rakkam A Sangma has made it clear that the government wants maximum three categories of schools – government, non-government and private.
Currently, the state has 13 categories of school teachers and 4-5 categories of college teachers, the minister told reporters on Thursday.
For the purpose, the government has already started a process of holding consultations for provincialisation of all deficit schools and colleges across the state.
The government is coming up with the Meghalaya Education Grant (MEG) to initiate the process, he said.
“We are in the initial stage of holding consultation with the management of all deficit institutions as government is preparing to take over or provincialised all of them,” he said.
Stating that the objective is to streamline the education sector, the minister said, “We want to have maximum three categories of teachers – governmnet, non-government and private.”
Admitting that challenges ahead, Sangma said, “Many institutions will not agree and many institutions will be happy to become government institutions. Therefore, we are having this consultation to know whether these deficit institutions will give their consent or not.”
The minister will be meeting legislators in Shillong tomorrow to discuss the proposal.
“First proposal is government is preparing to take over or provincialise all deficit institutions from college to the primary school level as there are already sanctioned posts…,” Sangma said adding, “There is a challenge as governing bodies of those institutions may not agree but those who will not agree, the funding patterns will be different and for those who are willing to give their consent, government will finally take a call.”
Asked, the minister said that the government may require to spend additional Rs 30-40 crore for provincialisation of deficit institutions.
According to him, this will to a great extent help bring down the fee structure charged by the deficit institutions at present.
Citing a case, he said, “In Shillong College, there are 71 government sanctioned posts. The fees charged at present by the college is Rs 60,000 but if this college becomes government college, the fee will hardly be Rs 15,000.”
Further, the minister informed that the government spends nearly Rs 2,000 crore on teachers’ salary every year.
“Of this, we are spending Rs 927 crore for payment of salary to over 17,289 deficit and ad,hoc school teachers, Rs 366 crore for 14,666 SSA teachers and Rs 216 crore for 1399 college lecturers etc,” he stated.
