Teachers being unpaid their salaries for almost more than half of the year are nothing new here in our state. While most of us always make an issue of this and that about teachers every now and then, here I would like to ask everyone to ask their own conscience about the teachers and their plight. While teaching profession is regarded as one of the noblest and most respected profession all over the world, we have failed to regard teachers and treat them in the way they should be treated. Mere giving away of awards or felicitating them on Teachers’ Day once a year is not enough. Teachers are humans too just like us and have their own needs and wants and of course their own families to feed too. If we truly love and regard our teachers as we say, then everyone should stand up for their rights too. I wonder if our legislators and bureaucrats understand the burdens and hardships of the teachers going through for even once before they go to sleep at night or when they wake up in the morning. When our teachers are being unpaid their salaries for the past 6-7 months, how they can pay their children’s school fees, buy their essential commodities, manage their home necessities, meet their daily needs like fare for to and fro to the school and home, pay their phone bills and house rent and thus live a decent life like any one of us? During the last assembly session our leaders’ conscience allowed them to meet up for 15 minutes only just to discuss their salary hike and other allowances. While crores of money are spent on luxurious vehicles, procuring private properties and other countless extravagant pleasures or splurging huge amount while being chief guests in various functions the teachers are suffering badly and sadly wondering even how they will eat their next meal. The teachers under the RMSA, SSA are the most severely hit and the suffered lot every now and then. The contingency fund of the state and such others should be used to look after their plight during such times. The central flagship projects like SSA and RMSA are based on sharing basis of 90:10 where the huge bulk of the 90 percent of the amount are given by the centre and state are made to manage the remaining measly 10 percent but our state has failed miserably even to manage that, the reasons known best to our leaders how the funds are managed, diverted or siphoned leaving the teachers at the mercy of if tomorrow comes. In many districts all over the state, many of them have not even been paid their salary ever since they joined their service. Nagaland needs truthful, God-fearing and honest leaders. Let us love our teachers, let us stand for them. But our leaders are one of the best in making excuses. Everyone seems to be wondering where our concerned organizations like the NSF and others are in such moments.
Salang Imchen
