Column

When taxi operators threatened to go on strike for hike in fares, the government shuddered and cooed in a solution by giving in to the demand. But when it came to demands of teachers, the rulers exhaled fire, unwilling to budge an inch. In fact, the devil-may-care attitude is amply exhibited by the fact that in 27 days of college teachers striking work, the government has come to the negotiating table for less than 24 hours.

So then, that’s the horrid state of education, left uncared for with festering wounds. H1N1 virus may be giving our rulers sleepless nights, but they prefer to sleep over the demands of teachers. Or maybe the spectre

of people queuing up outside state government-administered sickbays is more frightening than the sight of empty campuses, classrooms and pupils whiling away their time in ridiculous activities.

The teachers, meanwhile, are trying all means to make their voice heard, including a jail bharo andolan planned for August 11. The bone of contention is the Sixth Pay Commission recommendation, the implementation of which has seen the government dragging its feet for long enough. The teachers’ demands include revision of the pay scales recommended by University Grants Commission (UGC). To think that a small state like Goa and a self-proclaimed impoverished state like Uttar Pradesh have implemented the recommendations.

Teachers are also seeking regular increment and promotions to those teachers who haven’t cleared the National Eligibility Test (NET) and State Eligibility Test (SET). Apparently, the benchmark of NET and SET was set by the Supreme Court intervention in 1991, but the state government implemented it only in 1999, thus allowing many teachers who haven’t cleared the tests to be part of the education system. A decade after its introduction, the state government seems to have got up from its deep slumber to claim that teachers who did not clear either of the tests will not be entitled for yearly increment or promotion.

The 1991 liberalisation experiment created a huge demand for various professional and vocational streams of education. Politicians saw a new cash cow and lined up to open educational institutes. Now, it’s here the resistance to teachers’ demand lies. If the pay commission’s recommendations are implemented, the instructors in their institutes will demand the same pay. Which means politicians will have to shell out money. And that, you know well, they won’t. All the hullabaloo about teaching being the most noble profession. Noble? The salary that teachers draw is ignoble. Come to think of it: Some drivers draw more than teachers engaged by private institutions on contract!

Well, probably our rulers don’t realise that the strike in colleges is potentially as dangerous as the fatal H1N1 microbes. Be warned, the contagion that has hit the education sector not only threatens sundry students, but it has the ability to cripple the future of India as well.