Dimapur: The Nagaland Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan Teachers' Association 2016 on Saturday called an indefinite boycott of classes from Monday after the state government failed to respond to the clarification it had sought on reduction of the salaries of its teachers.

The association asked all its members to adhere to the directives failing which they would be dealt with severely. It also asked the teachers on study leave to inform their substitutes to follow the directives.

A release, issued by association president Sao Venuh and general secretary Haisoliabe Ndang, said the government, instead of responding to the clarification, went ahead with intimidating the RMSA teachers of 2016 batch.

The association said an official memorandum stated that salary reduction was a directive of the Union ministry of human resource development following merger of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and RMSA into Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SMSA), an integrated scheme for school education.

However, it said, the SMSA draft document stated that central share under the scheme would be restricted as per the prevalent fund-sharing pattern for primary teachers drawing salary up to Rs 15,000 per month, upper primary teachers up to Rs 20,000 per month and secondary teachers up to Rs 25,000 per month.

It said the draft document also stated that the salary structure would be determined by the state norms for salaries.

Therefore, the association said, fixing Rs 25,000 per month for secondary teachers did not indicate the actual salary but simply the fund- sharing pattern.

The association also claimed that the minutes of Project Approval Board's meeting for Nagaland say that around Rs 102 crore was estimated as the salary of teachers according to the norms of the scheme and the balance amount was to be met by the state out of its own resources.

On recruitment of teachers, the draft document laid down that the teachers would be recruited as per the terms and conditions of the states and Union territories.

As such, the association questioned, what were the actual terms and conditions of Nagaland for recruitment and why are there different categories of teachers based on the nature of appointment when everyone has gone through the same mode of recruitment through written exam and viva voce.

Based on these, the RMSA teachers demanded equal treatment of all teachers under the SMSA and urged the government to issue new appointment orders to all teachers irrespective of erstwhile schemes with the same terms and conditions.