By Manoj Kumar Ojha
Guwahati : The Tea workers of Assam has expressed hope that the future of their children would be ” Bright by the government’s decision to provincialise government schools .
In a notification released on the orders of the Governor of Assam, the state government in the Department of School Education decided to go ahead with the provincialisation of the schools in tea garden areas with a condition that the services of the existing teachers engaged by the tea garden management will not be provincialised.
” We welcome the government’s decision. It is a ray of hope for our future generations, “a tea gardens’ worker in upper Assam’s districts told Our India.
“However, these teachers can continue to serve in the same school under the pay role of the concerned tea garden as on date”, mentions the official notification.
The notification further enumerates benefits these schools will receive under PM-POSHAN scheme stating, “2 (two) posts of teachers for each of the 419 LP Schools, 3 (three) posts of teachers for each of the 2 ME schools and the posts of 5 (five) teachers and 1 (one) Head Master for the High School shall be created. The students of the schools so provincialised shall get the benefits of the Free Text Books and PM-POSHAN (Mid-Day Meal), Free Uniform etc. The recruitment of teachers shall be done at the earliest”.
The government has directed concerned District Elementary Education Officers and Inspector of Schools to ensure proper working relationship between the newly appointed teachers and existing tea garden engaged teachers. Further they will ensure harmonious environment in the schools with better academic coordination.
Additionally, teachers engaged by the tea garden authorities will also be given various facilities like in-house training of teachers and benefits of capacity building programmes organized by the Department of School Education for teachers of other provincialised schools, as mentioned in the notification.
A large number of Tea Tribes communities live in upper Assam. Their children are dependent on garden managed schools for Primary education which require a lot of reformation and infrastructural development.