Sayeela Shafi Bhat
Teaching is a noble profession, indeed! Teachers are selfless, always ready to go to any extent to help their students. It gives a great feel of self–satisfaction to a teacher when they see their students achieve in life. In my mind, the word noble means something to be proud of, a means of willingly giving something of yourself to others, a positive achievement in this life. The nobility lies in deriving our delight for sharing with others what we know, and in being recognized by our student’s even years after they benefitted from our teaching.
But in today’s world, the word “noble” is misused. From a time when teachers used to stretch themselves to help their students without any expectation, now teachers are demanded to do it with no extra benefits. There is a huge difference between doing something voluntarily and being forced to. For any voluntary service, the beneficiary will definitely value it. The reward for the service in the happiness and satisfaction you get. However, if the same voluntary service is portrayed as your responsibility of the so-called “noble profession”, then it might not be valued.
Most teachers in our society feel marginalized, underappreciated and underpaid; this statement is more accurate for teachers working in the private schools. Teachers in private schools are facing exploitation similar in nature to the exploitation suffered by laborers in mills and brick kilns, and yet very few people realize the extent and scale of this exploitation. It must be noted that we cannot build a future for our students if we do not give due credit to our teachers.
Private school sector is growing vigorously and making mammoth profits. Private schools have seen growth like no other business; many chains of schools have emerged with ever increasing number of branches and with ever increasing wealth of the owners of these schools. This business of education has made some people obscenely rich by turning this service of education into a commodity which it is not. In private schools, fee is being increased at an astronomical scale but teachers serving in these schools have been reduced to status of manual laborers or salesmen of some products.
This is no more a secret in our society that the teachers are facing blatant exploitation by the private schools in the worst possible way. Even in the most prestigious and expensive schools, teachers monthly salary is less than the monthly fee paid by single student. When a teacher working in private school was asked by a correspondent as to what salary he gets, he said that it so low that he is ashamed of disclosing it. It is an open fact that private schools offer Rs. 3000/- to Rs.8000/- per month or less to their teachers. Teachers in private schools are dissatisfied with their working conditions and poor salaries, lack of say in academic matters and autocratic administration.
The most important reason due to which private schools are able to employ teachers at ridiculously low salary packages is no service structure. School proprietors pay their teachers peanuts while earning huge profit themselves. Teachers are unable to receive any old age benefits, study leave or maternity leave due to the lack of service structure or fair employment contract. Besides , the monthly crumbs they receive, which is most often paid late, the heavy workload they are expected to overcome on daily basis is a story for another day. Hardly will a teacher be assigned to single task; they are frequently expected to carry out and deliver a number of duties diligently.
Apart from the primary role of delivering lessons in class, teachers due to other academic engagements, end up more or less spending their nights sleeplessly. Painfully, with all these burdens, they are not expected to fall sick, while some schools can carelessly let teachers take some break, others will end up deducting some pennies from their monthly peanut for the days absent. In fact, some have gone an extra mile to deduct teacher’s salary for late coming with no regard for their excusable excuse. In case of any challenge faced by a teacher like birth, accident or any other emergency, there and then, the management will surely congratulate or sympathize with a teacher, but it will be a cold day in hell before they extend their financial help.
Private school teachers have no job security even in the mostly prestigious ones. They can be easily fired or dismissed for frivolous reasons or no reason at all. Teachers are often fired by most private schools just before the long winter vacations only to save expenses despite the fact that schools charge and receive fee for these vacations. This most unethical practice has become a norm and a trick of trade in the private sector education. Most private schools have been tagged as “exploitative grounds” simply because they can selectively choose intellectuals at their youthful stage and dump them when they feel their commitment is not what it used to be, regardless of how they struggle to put food on table or keep a roof over their heads.
Private schools usually prefer to employ untrained teachers to reduce the cost of hiring. This exploitative practice of private schools closes the doors of employment for experienced teachers. Untrained teachers are easily manipulated into working on low wages. Some call it the paradox of private education but it is a truth, the more time a teacher spends at private school the more costly his services become for the school. The schools have to invest more in their experienced teachers in terms of salaries, and administrators do not particularly like to increase their salaries. Such teachers are then treated like a burden and are more likely to face intimidation, humiliation and threatening behavior of the administrators.
Private schools preferentially hire female teachers not because they are on a mission of women empowerment, but because women are available for teaching jobs at a nominal remuneration. Due to our traditions and values, women in our society are not required to earn for livelihood and most of them prefer a life of home maker. Women opt for a job for the sole reason of supporting their husbands or parents and as such they are more vulnerable to workplace exploitation. So private schools save millions of rupees annually by hiring women at very low wages thereby, exploiting the compulsions of a needy woman.
If you are a private school teacher don’t dream of getting any professional training because administrators in private schools are never interested in employee’s capacity building, the things that interest them is using any treating teachers like beasts of burden and maximizing their profits. Teachers in private schools are over-burdened. There is enormously excessive amount of paper work for the teachers to perform and non-teaching activities are routinely assigned to them by the administrators. Teachers non-willingly have to comply with the instructions only to save their jobs.
Private school teachers are seldom permanent employees ; with very few exceptions most of the private schools don’t hire teachers on permanent basis. Private school teachers are always at a probation period and being in this period means a teacher can be dismissed at any time without any notice what so ever. Due to lack of service structure teachers are forced to serve in these trying conditions just to earn their livelihood. In addition to these, private school teachers are not allowed to form a union and are deprived of this democratic right. Private schools owners have a union of their own to protect and lobby for their interests but teachers have no professional union. This is the another reason why exploitation of teachers goes unchecked in private schools.
The recent closure of educational institutions in wake of COVID-19 pandemic has been welcomed by a majority of parents who were concerned about the safety and well being of their children. However, it is really disturbing to note that some private schools have deducted the salaries of their staff and are forcing them to take one or two classes a week so that they don’t have to be paid for the whole month. This is sheer injustice to those who have to run their homes. A school that is charging full fee from its students can easily afford to pay full salaries to their staff in these crucial times.
Regrettable is what most private schools teachers have become during this COVID-19 pandemic, they nearly turned to beggars. Being an uncompromised business oriented mind of most owners of private schools, they hold the belief that they are doing teachers a favor by releasing their salaries. Most private school teachers do not have the right to say, their opinions are considered irrelevant and decisions made by most private school management always stand. I observed teachers cry for money amid pandemic. Anyone can feel the pain and stress of a person who has to suffer for more than three to four months without any penny. When this type of daily exploitation is overviewed then a financial and social gap creeps in the society which leads to violence and sadism. Anyone can imagine the future of a child is disappointed and stressed hands which results into brutal hitting and yelling on children at school.
So what needs to be done to end this vicious circle of exploitation? Government can improve working conditions of teachers in private schools. An independent directorate must be established to keep a check on private schools. Aptitude tests must be conducted in a transparent manner for hiring teachers in private schools. Schools must be required to award a fair contract of employment to teachers. A service structure must be awarded to private schools teachers guaranteeing a respectable wage. Schools must pay teachers according to the category a school is placed in. Schools which charge higher fees must be required to pay teachers accordingly.
The government should set up a regulatory body for the private schools so that a minimum salary for teachers is enforced. Due to exploitation of teachers, students being the ultimate sufferers, teachers should be paid handsomely as per dignity of the profession. An e-portal must be established to carry out the registration and documentation of private schools for better supervision and compliance with the rules. Teachers employed in private schools must have a forum to complaint if the school fails to pay them on time so that they can knock on the doors of the authority for payment related or any other concerns.
If our society needs quality youth, it must protect teacher’s lives and self-respect. Teachers are nation builders and to radically change a country not only as a whole but on the individual level, they need to be invested in, supported, and celebrated.
“Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.”
—Albert Einstein—-
(The writer can be reached at [email protected])