Bengaluru: With education going online, albeit with safety guidelines in place, is there a place for the thousands of teachers in schools? Government schools will continue to employ them as they are paid from the public exchequer, but private schools are slashing staff left right and center given that the workload will come down, admissions are delayed, fees have not been paid and the private schools are looking at an uncertain year financially. The Deccan Chronicle reports that close on 40,000 private school teachers have lost or are losing their jobs across Karnataka. Among the worst-hit are the pre-nursery and primary schools, where no new admission has taken place. In pre-nursery schools, the government has banned online classes as well. In Karnataka, over 54.5 lakh students are enrolled in private schools while 8 lakh students are with the government school
“We have budget schools which charge somewhere between Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 per year and give quality education. In this lockdown, over 25 percent of the parents have not cleared the last year’s fees. Even though the government has asked the schools to collect tuition fees, not even 2-3 percent of parents have come forward to pay the fees,” D Shashikumar, general secretary of Karnataka Associated Management of English Medium Schools (KAMS), told the Deccan Chronicle.
Premium Schools too have slashed teacher salaries. “Both the teaching and non-teaching staff were paid from the school’s reserves for the first three months after the lockdown but how long can one continue without the government’s aid? We demanded the government to lend a loan Rs 1,000 crore or provide the remuneration for the teachers. All the while the government did not bother to spend much on the noble profession,” Shashikumar lamented.
Teachers have never taught online. But like always, they are gearing themselves for the role – becoming students of technology themselves. The principal of SSMRV PU college, Vasanthalakshmi, said that while her school has done every arrangement of online classes, teachers have been reluctant to come before the camera.“The cameras are placed in the classes and the editing is done by the computer department. The teachers are just asked to take the classes but initially, they did face issues,” she remarked.
But they expect to get paid for their efforts. “It is not easy to take classes online. We have not done it before. A lot of effort goes into it and the end of the day we do not get paid. My school is owned by a powerful politician and despite collecting fees from the students our salary was slashed by 30 percent in the month of May. Moreover, we are risking our lives by going to the schools to take classes when there are no students turning up. If nothing we expect dignity from the management, schools, and the parents” a school teacher on the condition of anonymity told the Deccan Chronicle.
Just as Management is using the pandemic to slash staff and salaries, they are offering discounts to students for admission. One newly started private college in Mangalore is offering a 50% discount on fees for the children of COVID frontline warriors. Commenting over the issue, SR Umashankar, principal secretary to the government, primary and secondary education has said that the government is aware of the situation and is trying to find a solution.
Meanwhile, K’taka govt teachers to donate 1 day’s salary for Pvt counterparts
Responding to Karnataka Education Minister S. Suresh Kumars appeal, teachers of state-run schools agreed to donate a day’s salary to their counterparts in private schools, as they have not been paid since April due to the COVID-induced lockdown, an official said on Wednesday.
“Government teachers have agreed to donate a day’s salary to pay our counterparts in private schools, as they are in distress due to non-payment by their managements, which are unable to raise funds due to lockdown,” said State High School Assistant Teachers’ Association president H.K. Manjunath.
With hundreds of schools remaining shut across the southern state since March 25 when the lockdown was enforced and extended to contain coronavirus, management of private and unaided institutions have not been able to collect fees from their students or borrow funds to pay monthly salaries to their faculty since April.
“As schools are yet to resume classes after summer due to rising COVID cases in the state, especially in Bengaluru, their managements could not collect fees from their students to date, resulting in non-payment of their teachers’ salaries for 3 months since April,” said Manjunath.
Though the private-run schools’ association rushed to the state government for relief funds to pay 3-month salaries to their teacher-members, there was no official response to the plea due to resource crunch in the treasury.
“While Kumar appealed to us to donate 2-day salary for our counterparts in private schools, we have agreed to pay for a day, as we have already given similar amount to the Kodagu and North Karnataka flood relief fund in September 2019 and the chief minister’s relief fund recently,” said Manjunath.
About 1.4 lakh teachers in private and unaided schools hope to partly mitigate their hardship with the donation of their counterparts in the state-run schools.
The Karnataka State Primary School Teachers’ Association (KSPSTA), however, said its members were yet to decide on donating a day’s salary as they have already paid similar amount to the CM’s Covid-19 relief fund in April.
“Our members have already paid for CM’s flood relief fund last year and Covid-19 relief fund in April though their income is not on par with that of high school teachers and they too have been facing crisis due to lockdown and extension of vacation,” KSPSTA secretary N. Chandru told IANS
