SHILLONG – The VPP’s demand to remove Education Commissioner and Secretary Vijay Kumar Mantri has drawn a direct response from the Meghalaya SSA School Association, with its president Aristotle C. Rymbai calling the demand unfair and defending the officer’s role in education reforms.
Rymbai said the association was surprised that such a demand came from VPP president Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit, whom he described as a respected elected representative.
“As a stakeholder, we found that Sir Vijay Kumar Mantri is a very hardworking, dedicated, and a very committed person in order to bring reform of education sector in our state of Meghalaya,” Rymbai said.
He said Mantri has also remained accessible to teachers and listens to their grievances. “He is a kind of person who listen and heard the grievances raised by the teaching community,” he said.
Rymbui’s defence goes beyond Mantri’s accessibility. Rymbai argued that the Commissioner and Secretary was implementing decisions taken by the government after following the required process.
“We feel that the demand made by the Voice of the People Party for the removal of Sir Vijay Kumar Mantri is unfair, as because he is only one of the officers implemented the policy or any decision passed by the government after following due process,” he said.
Rymbai then pointed to the structured pay framework, one of the major issues surrounding the Education Department. He said SSA and ad-hoc teachers had spent two to three decades on fixed pay without job security, before the new framework was introduced. According to Rymbai, the framework provides a salary structure based on length of service while protecting teachers’ service. He also credited the government with extending the Central Provident Fund (CPF) to the teachers.
Rymbai acknowledged gaps in the structured pay framework and called for dialogue to address them.
“The structured pay framework needs improvement in the future and this can be done through dialogue, discussion, and equal responsibility by all the stakeholders and the government,” Rymbai said.
He also raised a broader issue affecting different categories of teachers.
“Be it SSA teachers, deficit teachers, ad hoc teachers… at the end of the day, all of us we are performing the same duties, the same working hours,” he said.
Rymbai argued that teachers performing the same work should receive the same benefits in salary and service conditions.
