Itanagar: The All East Kameng District Students’ Union (AEKDSU) has reminded the state’s education department of its demand for filling up the vacant posts of subject teachers in the East Kameng district at the earliest.
The reminder of AEKDSU’s long-pending demand, submitted to the Education commissioner on Monday, noted with concern that “the absence of teachers is severely affecting the students of the district”.
“Though offline classes have resumed in the state, the situation for the students in East Kameng continues to remain the same due to the lack of subject teachers. If this trend continues, some of the schools of East Kameng may even stop functioning soon,” AEKDSU general secretary Pritom Yangfo said on Tuesday.
Yangfo, who was addressing a press conference at the Press Club here, said the AEKDSU has already submitted two representations to the state government, one each in 2019 and 2020, apprising it of the problems being faced by the students of East Kameng.
“We also spoke to the education secretary on Monday and we were told that the situation is almost the same across the state when it comes to physics, science and chemistry teachers. We don’t understand why the government is not able to create these posts,” he said.
The government should focus more on such issues rather than sanctioning schemes, as the lack of quality teachers means lack of quality education, he added.
The AEKDSU also expressed its resentment over the meddling of MLAs and ministers when it comes to the transfer and posting of teachers.
“Our legislatures and ministers who prefer sending their children to other states for their studies should stop interfering in matters related to the transfer and posting of teachers. Also there are teachers who do not want to serve in the districts and only wish to remain in the capital. This trend has severely hampered the student-teacher ratio,” Yangfo said.
AEKDSU education secretary Sichi Sangdo said there are 10 senior and higher secondary schools in East Kameng and most of them are short of teachers, especially in the science stream.
“When the elections are around the corner our politicians promise that special focus would be given to health and education. But where is that promise now? We are sure that it’s not just East Kameng but all the districts of the state are facing the same issue and this has to be resolved at the earliest,” Sangdo said.
He further appealed to the government, especially the politicians of East Kameng to give importance to health and education as promised.
“There are more than a thousand science students in East Kameng who are waiting for subject teachers to be posted in the district. The future of these students lies in the hands of the government,” he said.
The AEKDSU has threatened to launch a series of democratic movements if the government fails to meet its demand.
According to a letter written by the Government Higher Secondary School (GHSS), Seppa to the director of education earlier this month, the school alone lacks 4 post graduate and 10 trained graduate teachers, besides a librarian and peon.
Among others, the posts of chemistry, biology and physics teachers (TGT) have remained vacant in the school since 2012, while English teachers (TGT) have not been posted in the school since the year 2005.
The state government has declared 2021 as the ‘Year of Education’.
