Nagaland graduate teachers request DoSE to keep limited departmental exam in abeyance

Dimapur, Aug. 1 (EMN): The All Nagaland Graduate Teachers’ Forum (ANGTF) has requested the Department of School Education (DoSE) to keep its proposed limited departmental exam (LDE) in abeyance till the ongoing revision of Department Service Rules is completed.

In a letter addressed to the Commissioner and Secretary, DoSE, the forum reminded that the state government had on March 21, 2018 decided to set up a Review Committee to review Nagaland School Education Service Rules 2017 due to the presence of various inherent anomalies but the exercise could not be completed on time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maintaining that the review is still going on, it requested the concerned authority to keep the proposal on LDE in abeyance till the ongoing exercise is completed, in the larger interest of the teaching community.

The ANGTF also stated that the department is yet to finalise the seniority list of graduate teachers (GTs), and hence no knowledge of who is senior or junior, and who are eligible for the proposed LDE as some GTs do not have both appointment and regularisation orders.

It went on to say that compromising B.Ed degree by putting the course at par with PSTE/DEL.ED in the proposed LDE is unbecoming. Maintaining that AHM/JEO posts are supposed to be filled by the GTs through promotion, it contested that such posts cannot be reserved for PT/PGT etc. as it will cause supersession and encroachment of GTs promotional avenues.

“Over and above this, the nature of appointment, the cadre, nature/level of work and scale pay of PT & GT are different. Therefore clubbing up of these two cadres in the proposal will create lot of complication in the service matter in near future,” read the letter.

Maintaining that the post of AHM has been filled through promotion of GTs with B.Ed on seniority, since the inception of the department in 1964, the forum said such posts should not be filled through LDE conducted by the NPSC, as proposed by the department.

“If at all necessary for department to initiate LDE exercise, the Forum urge upon the concerned authority to carry it out only after backlog cases of GTs promotion stagnation are cleared, because at present around 300 AHM posts are lying vacant in the department in one hand whereas on the other hand senior GTs (who have served for 25-30 years) are overdue for promotion,” it stated.