SHILLONG, AUG 31: School and college teachers under the banner of the Joint Action Committee of All Teachers’ Associations of Meghalaya (JACATAM) decided to intensify their agitations to protest against indifferent attitude of the state government to their demands.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the committee held on Saturday after the government failed to initiate talks with the teachers on their demands.
“We have decided intensify agitations to strongly protest against the indifference attitude of the state government,” JACATAM Chairman ED Nongsiang told reporters after the meeting here. He said, “It is very unfortunate that the state government has turned down our small request.”
Earlier, the state government through a press communiqué had urged all the teachers to refrain from taking any action and that only reasonable issues would be examined and consider.
“We are not accepting this request since there is no official communication from the part of the government to us,” Nongsiang said. He also felt that putting condition that issues which the government finds reasonable will be discussed itself is understood that the government is not serious about calling the teachers for talks.
According to Nongsiang the teachers had demanded that the talks and dialogue if initiated should be ‘unconditional’.He reiterated that the teachers wanted assurance from the policy makers and not from government officials.
Informing that the meeting also resolved to the go ahead with the first phase of their agitation, Nongsiang said, “We will take a mass casual leave on September 3 to be followed by the sit-in-demonstrations (dharnas) at the 23 zones in the eleven districts of the state on September 4.”
Announcing that the Teachers’ Day celebration will be boycotted, Nongsiang informed that on September 5 there will be a protest rally at Malki ground in which over 14,000 teachers right from primary level to college level will be participating.
Nongsiang informed, “We requested all the teachers not to attend any official functions organized by the government.” He also said teachers selected for the different awards on that day have also been asked not to accept the recognition.
Nongsaing informed that the next phase of agitations would be announced on the September 5 if the state government still fails to invite teachers for talks. “We will intensify our protests till our demand is achieved,” he added. – By Our Reporter
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