ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. GOVT SHOULD STAND UP TO TEACHER DEFIANCE ON TRANSFERS

Letter:
The blatant defiance by the teachers challenging the right of the government to transfer them on flimsy grounds and to politicalise the situation is not a healthy trend. My congratulations to you for your Editorial Dated 22 May 2012 [“To Staff Schools Better, End Interference”]. While others saw the incident as an another opportunity to sensationalise for greater readership, you stood apart by standing for the village school students. Thank you.
The teachers in Sikkim are the most pampered lot, government having given the highest salary among all category of employees and being a very potent political force having clout in almost every part of the state they have always managed to get what they wanted. As a consequence, the government always acquiesced to their whims and fancies and with ever vote hungry politicians, most of them have managed themselves well with the choice postings whether, they are required in the school or not. As a consequence, East District has excess teachers while other Districts are reeling under the shortage of teachers. The HRDD has already made public the figures which is rather disturbing.
It is evident that the action of the department is void of any vindictiveness and taken in the larger public interest and in the interest of the students in the villages. But the teachers associations have taken the unfortunate stand that the transfer in the mid-term hampers the students or the department has no clear cut policy on transfer etc. but they have not contested the fact of surplus teachers. But one wonders, if the transferred teachers were surplus in their existing schools then how would it hamper the study of the students in those schools! And then when there is such huge shortage of teachers in other schools, how come the associations are not worried about the students in such schools? Or is the transfer policy, which the state government or any other government in the country has not framed is more important than the future of the students in other district?
Are the teachers association trying to further the politics of convenience at the cost of the future of the village students and lock horn with the department issuing their own directives in defiance to the heads of such institutions to allow the teachers to continue in their schools despite the transfer order from the department setting aside all decorum and openly challenging the government order which smacks of utter lawlessness.
The government for the first time has taken a bold step in the interest of its future generation instead cowing down to the blackmailing by a strong political segment knowing fully well that they may again leave no stone unturned to unturn the government rather leaving no stone unturned to do their duties diligently as pledged in their application for job.We must congratulate the govt for their boldest decision.
It is time for all right thinking citizen to support the department in its bid to cleanse the system and the media must also take a positive stand instead of fuelling the fire and disgruntled politicians must not also muddle the issue and stop fishing in the troubled water for the sake of our children at least this once. Say enough is enough. If the other members of the same teaching fraternity can go and serve in remote schools why can’t the present lot do so? And if they don’t go where they are required who do they expect to go and teach the poor students in our villages when the government in the hope of alluring them to teach well paid them so much that it cannot afford now to recruit more teachers. Some of the transferred Teachers have already joined their new schools, while others are still playing politics and awaiting HCM, but Govt must tell them -it is simple - if you want to get paid also pay back to the society what you are taking instead of blackmailing the government on the strength of potential political strength.
Gajendra Gurung, Jorethang [recvd on email]