AGARTALA, Aug 4 (TIWN): Even when the health of the agitated SSA teachers is deteriorating, the School Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty categorically said that regularization of SSAemployees is not possible. Briefing the media persons Tapan said that state govt is sympathetic towards the SSA employees and the govt is looking at their demands from humanitarian grounds . But he said employees recruited under SSA won't be regularized . Citing the instance of 1.78 lakh employees of Uttar Pradeh appointed as ShikshaMitras , whose jobs were terminated by the Supreme Court Tapan Chakraborty said ,"In 2012 UP govt made them regular but the Apex court denied to accept them as teachers. " Cakraborty further said that Hunger strike is not a solution to any problem .

As usual Chakraborty placed the ball to Centre's court saying ," State govt has already placed its demands before the centre regarding their regularization . Let the SSA employees too place the said demand before the Centre ".

The process of regularization of SSA teachers started in 2011  . "The secretary approved regularization of SSA teachers of different states on August 26, 2011 and the MHRD; New Delhi directed the education department to regularize SSA teachers in a meeting of the Project Approval Board on March 14, 2011 and February 27, 2012 respectively.

Regularization is also important in the spirit of the SarvaSikshaAbhiyan and Right to Education Act, 2009 which stipulated the teacher-pupil ratio to 1:40 and 1:35 for primary and upper primary classes respectively. This ratio cannot be left to contractual teachers who generally leave the job for regular jobs, 5,000 posts are still vacant in School Education Department.

 In the Right to Education it is clearly stated that, “The State Government or the local authority may/shall notify terms and conditions of service and salary and allowances of teachers in order to create a professional and permanent cadre of teachers. “

Earlier, The Ministry of Human Resource and Development sent a letter to the State Government quoting , “The state should maintain unified teachers cadres and no separate SSA Cadres is permissible as all teachers are ultimately to be borne by the State/ Union Territories.

Meanwhile in the year 2013 in reply to a Right to Information (RTI ) application filed by an SSA teacher namely Arvind Rana, who is also the president of SarvaShikshaAbhiyan Teachers Welfare Association (SSATWA), UT, it has come to notice that the teachers working under the SSA scheme are entitled to the same benefits as regular teachers.

Rana had filed the application to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) relating to sanction junior basic teachers (JBT primary), trained graduate teachers (TGT, upper primary), and their appointment procedures and duties.

In its reply to Rana, the ministry stated that SarvaShikshaAbhiyan (SSA) is only a programme providing additional funding to the state/UT for elementary education development and reform and there are no separate SSA scales or norms for teacher recruitment.

All appointment procedures and duties are governed by the state government/Union Territories. Furthermore, "all teachers are appointed under their respective education departments, not under SSA,"  said the reply.