Addressing issues of private school teachers
While the private school sector is generally doing well in Kashmir, particularly some big schools, the teachers in all such institutions are being meagerly paid. According to a report published in this newspaper, majority of teachers in private schools get Rs 9000/= as an average monthly salary. The salary scale in every private school starts from Rs: 4000 to 20,000 only (exceptions are there though), while as many of the private sector school owners have succeeded in building empires for themselves, from their schooling businesses, over the years. Ironically, the governments, that be, have failed to ensure the teachers in private sector schools are paid well. The job insecurity in private schools is another issue that the teachers are grappling with. The teachers of these schools have been running from pillar to post to get their grievances redressed. But the problem is that the Directorate of Education, that over-sees the functioning of these schools have legally no jurisdiction to intervene as for as the salary component of the teachers is concerned. On the other hand, the labour department, that normally takes notice of wages related issues and also makes interventions, too has no authority to intervene in this case as the teachers don’t fall in the caregory of ‘worforce’.
Since the teaching staff is the most significant component of the schooling system; and the teachers are responsible to build an educated society, the salaries of the teachers, ideally, should have been the highest of all. However, the teachers complain that the teachers are the ones paid minimum wages in the entire private education sector. Some private school owners and their managements have set their own rules in place. Many of these rules are even in violation of ethical values. How can you build an educated society if you deny respect to a teacher and refuse to give him or her respectable wages? Teachers do not have job security in most of the private schools, where they pour blood sweat, and tears to serve well. They are pushed to the wall by the arrogant owners and management. The teachers wonder that if the government can intervene in matters like parents’ grievances, fee fixation of the schools, and so on, why it can’t take some initiatives to ensure problems facing teachers in private schools are solved.
However, the private school owners also have their own grievances and believe that the problem lies with the government, which is not ready to provide autonomous space to the private sector schools in Jammu and Kashmir. At least, these schools should have financial autonomy to ensure they are able to pay reasonable salaries. Unfortunately, the government considers private sector schools as a non-profit activity while as the owners want to run their schools as businesses. They insist that to maintain its writ and hegemony on private schools, the government squeezes their financial autonomy. For instance, fee fixation is the government’s domain. The government tells the schools how much they must charge as tuition fees. Since the tuition fee is the core income for the private schools, the owner decides, the salary structure according to his or her net income.
In this backdrop it is the responsibility of the government, particularly the education department to intervene in the matter. The government should ensure that the teachers of the private schools are not exploited. Given the unemployment rate here, educated youth are desperate to get jobs but that desperation should not be exploited by anyone. At the same time the government need to look into the grievances of the owners of these schools too.
