Financial woes: Trademark many teachers in State
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, September 06 2018: Oja Nageshwar feels that being a Government-aided school teacher is more of a curse than blessing.

He has been tormented by professional hazards in all spheres of life, and most particularly in financial related areas.

Nageshwar who has been working as a teacher in Mela Lampak High School at Kitna Panung (a Government-aided school in Imphal East) for the last 35 years asserted that teaching in Government-aided schools has always been a matter of enduring every forms of struggle in life as the teachers are compelled to suffer the extreme economic deprivation in life.

Informing that he was approved by the Government in September 2016 and became the Headmaster since February, 2017, he claimed that he receives a monthly salary of round Rs 4500 .

He continued that he has been trying hard to meet his daily needs with the low amount of salary.

In a Government-aided school, salaries of only the approved teachers are paid although many teachers and staff are being engaged in running a school.

Mela Lampak High School has the total number of 10 teachers and one chowkidar out of which only two teachers has been approved.

The salaries of the two approved teachers in the school are being shared together with the rest of the unapproved teachers and the chowkidar m the school.

The pay for the approved teachers in Government-aided schools is also paid on the scale of 5th Pay till date.

Hence, Nageshwar gets the salary of just around Rs 4500 after deducting the pay share of the unapproved teachers in his school although he is the Headmaster.

Saying that he has been working at a Government-aided school teacher by enduring and producing all his power/capability till today, the Headmaster went on to lament that his strength is likely to exhaust equally with his retirement while informing that he will be retired in 2020.He also maintained that his worries for life increases when he starts thinking about his future while conveying that a Government-aided school teacher does not have a pension scheme and has to go empty handed when they retired.

"To this extent, Government-aided school teachers are compelled to bear the brunt of a prolonged torture", he lamented and added that "there are many Government-aided school teachers who are ill-feted and whose plights and problems have never been considered by the Government".

According to All Manipur Government-aided School Teachers' Association president Deban, there are 585 Government-aided schools in the State.

The number of approved teachers in the schools is 1418 while 1240 teachers in the said schools are yet to be approved.

There are also 285 vacant posts in the said schools as the Government fail to fill up the vacant posts after the retirement of many teachers.

The Government-aided school teachers are also paid on the basis of 5th Pay scale as they have been left out when the Revised of Pay (ROP) for all the State Government employees in the State was done in 2010 .

The Govt-aided school teachers have been excluded from the purview of the ROP on not being included in the Manipur Government Employee List (MGEL) at the time.

This being the reason, Government-aided school teachers who have been approved after 2010 are getting the salary structured on the basic pay of Rs 4000 and 47% Dearness Allowance (DA) with an annual increment of just Rs 100 .

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