Teaching cannot be compromised: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has ruled the government can’t deny quality education on the pretext of “paucity of funds” and teachers who don’t meet the basic qualification for a particular job in an aided educational institution aren’t entitled to claim salaries on par with their meritorious colleagues.

In order to maintain the standard of education the state government provides grant-in-aid to private schools to ensure the smooth running of the institution so that the standard of teaching may not suffer for want of funds.

A bench of Justice P Sathasivam and Justice BS Chauhan, noted that quality of education depends on various factors but the most relevant criteria is “excellence of teaching staff”. The observation was made while accepting the contentions made by the Orissa government against a high court judgment facilitating a group of underperformer lecturers to avail UGC grades.

Utkal University had exempted a large number of college teachers from meeting the basic criteria of 54% marks in the master’s course.

When the state raised an objection and directed that those who were educationally qualified would be entitled to salary grades fixed by the UGC, the aggrieved lecturers moved the high court (HC).

HC scrapped the state’s decision. It also directed the state to pay them for the long period that they had served the institutions despite being less meritorious.

The court said it’s “crystal clear” that a teacher who had been appointed without possessing the requisite qualification at an initial stage cannot get the benefit of grant-in-aid scheme unless he acquires the additional qualification.
Such teachers will not be entitled to claim the UGC pay scale unless he acquires a higher qualification such as MPhil or PhD.

Considering that the teachers had been serving for a long time, the apex court said it wouldn’t be desirable to terminate their services.