Development is the prime aim of education, so education and development go with hand hand. Doubtlessly, teachers are the driving force for the development of a nation, that is why they are known as “Nation Builders”. The term development is vast, in nature of its meaning, which can be used as a synonymous word for every type of growth in any field of life. The experts who bring about this development are the human resource. A person who expertise the human and makes him/her resourceful to deal with his/her predetermined work in his specific field of life or profession, is none other than the teacher.
So, be it the transection of academic related content, physical developmental skills , art or any other kind of skill, the guide required for all above purposes is a teacher.Thus the profession of all teachers is same, which is to teach, irrespective of their fields of specifications. So if the teachers are not taken care of for stable state of their mind, by virtue of fulfillment of their genuine demands, the development is not possible.
Moreover a teacher is teacher, he/she should not be tagged with recruitment tags. Up to the secondary level, In School Education Department, If the assigned duty of all teachers is same, to teach elementary and secondary classes, then why differently recruited teachers are named with different tags even after their regularisation , Viz, Rehbar-e-Taleem Teachers, SSRB Recruited Teachers, Migrant Substitute Teachers, Falahi Aaam Trust Teachers and Contractual Teachers, just on the basis of their recruitment processes.
All though, all the required facilities are not provided to the teachers deserved by them and all the teachers in the state are not empowered and treated well, as compared to the teachers of other states or other countries, by the government. Nevertheless, out of all categories of teachers, it is only Rehbar-e-Taleem Teacher who is being made to suffer the most for his/her deserving rights. All the elementary and secondary level teachers, irrespective of their type of recruitment are given all the rights mentioned in “CSR” after their regularisation, except the Rehbar-e-Taleem Teachers. Be it the right of transfer, timely release of salary or any other right , It is only a Rehbar-e-Taleem-Teacher who is kept deprived from them.
Talking about Rehbar-e-Taleem Teachers, a “Rehabar” means one who guides and “Taleem” means education. So, “Rehbar-e-Taleem” mean the “The Guide of Education”, doubtlessly a very good and admirable name given to them. But one wonders, why they are not treated so beautifully in terms of their genuine rights by the government as treated with name.
The scheme of recruitment of Rehbar-e-Taleem Teachers was launched about one and a half decade before, to fill up the vacant posts of preexisting schools and to meet out the inadequacy of required teachers for rationalisation of teacher/student ratio in government schools. Later on , a good number of teachers, was also recruited under the scheme of Rehbar-e-Taleem for the newly upgraded and newly opened schools, in the areas, where there was in availability of the schooling facilities, through a centrally sponsored scheme, Sarva Shikhsha Abhiyan “SSA” , the scheme which was launched as a flagship programme for upliftment of education sector in the country. A teacher under the scheme of Rehbar-e-Taleem, was recruited by the government after selecting a meritorious educated unemployed person from the revenue village, transparently with proper consent of proof from all village committee members of the that village, with out any sort of corruption. The teachers recruited on Rehbar-e-Taleem pattern had to work on a meager honorarium of rupees 1500, later enhanced to rupees 3000 per month , till their regularisation as general line teachers. To make them work on very low salary for five years of their initial service was to save the budget of state government. But after their regularisation they had to be treated at par with other general line teachers.
The said scheme turned to be a very successful one. Due to the success of Rehbar-e-Taleem Scheme, government later made recruitment in other departments on the same pattern, like Rehabar-e-Zirat in the Department of Agriculture, Rehbar-e-Janglat in the Department of Forestry etc.
But unfortunately, Rehbar-e-Taleem Teachers are being dealt with step motherly treatment from government. Even the government accepts that regularised Rehbar-e-Taleem Teachers are considered as genral line teachers after their regularisation, still they are not yet allowed to enjoy transfer right, those who are working in newly opened and newly upgraded schools are deprived from the right to get salary from state budget, those who have completed their term of seniority have not been promoted to masters, etc.
To save the state exchequer, the teachers working in newly upgraded and newly opened schools were paid and are still being paid their salaries from the Sarva Shikhsha Abhiyan , the funds for which are being sectioned from MHRD “Ministry of Human Resource Development” with a little percentage of funds being paid from state revenue. However, there is no where mentioned in their engagement orders that they belong to SSA scheme. But they have been purely recruited and regularised on the pattern of Rehbar-e-Taleem scheme and it becomes the responsibility of state government to look out for some workable alternative for the timely release of their monthly salaries.
At the beginning of SSA scheme the funds were drifting from centre to the state sufficiently as per the requirement for the salary and other components of the scheme. But as the time passed, the flow of funds has gone down with the result of growing requisition for newly recruited teachers and time to time curtailments made by centre government in the pattern of centre/state ratio of expenditure schedule.
With the result, teachers working under this scheme have to wait for months togather to get their salaries. This delay in their salaries makes them to face various hardships and brings them under metal stress for non availability of money for daily expenditures to run their families. Even some teachers who are care takers of their old aged ailing parents can’t get required medicines for them due to non-availability of money.
Despite the promises made by the top most ministers of state government many a times, with the teachers getting their salary from SSA, enven some times ministers promised on the floor of house, that salary of such teachers would be delinked from the source of funding to state budget, but nothing has been done yet in this regard. On one hand goverment is claiming for its developments every now and then, but on the other hand teachers, who can bring about these developments are without salaries for months togather. So claiming about development, makes no sense, if teachers are without salaries.
Now the question is how long , the government will continue its biased approach towards this perticular cadre of teachers and how long the Rehbar-e-Taleem Teachers have to suffer and struggle for their basic rights which are enjoyed by all other employees of the state except them.
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