YOUR FEE-THEIR SALARY

            The Fee you pay is the salary that runs their household

The economic impact of corona pandemic has largely been disruptive and lately, its social and non-medico repercussions have started showing up. India was witnessing a slowdown already and the virus-crisis has magnified the risks to its economy. In the last three months since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, we have realised that it is far more than a health crisis. Economics is a phenomenon of interdependence. Effect of the pandemic on one stratum of society is bound to spell vulnerability on to the others. The ongoing standoff between parents and schools is one such consequence.

Like the medical fraternity, teachers too didn’t get their share of lockdown-leisure over which we all went gaga. In fact, they had to work even harder. Working from home is not a joke, more so when it befalls upon you suddenly. Online-teaching, from home, in particular, demands special arrangements. You have to spare one room out of two or three people generally have in cities and cut off all sorts of disturbances. You must also have a good internet connection and compatible gadgets. Online teaching is many times more taxing than physical teaching. It demands more discipline and patience on the part of the teachers. They cannot even move away from the camera and have to keep a vigil on the attendees all the time. The most challenging of all is taking and marking the tests. The task must have been more onerous for the lady teachers because normally, they and their kids go to school simultaneously. But, during the lockdown, dealing with spouse and children, neglected for hours, would have been another ordeal they had to deal with.

Their problems didn’t end here. When they asked for their salary after doing their job with sincerity and devotion, their employers showed them their bare hands. Non-receipt of fees was the excuse they laid down. Parents, the other party, complained of being too tied down. They too didn’t receive their emoluments from their employers. Many had lost their jobs. Many had to shut down their businesses. With no income to sustain, expecting such people to pay their children’s school fee is inhumane. One such parent in Chandigarh has written a letter to the Prime Minister seeking permission to sell his kidney for paying school fees. Laughable? No. It’s pathetic.

However, NO-SCHOOL-NO-FEE campaign by the parents across the country is selfishness and illogical. If a few parents offer a plea that they have no job or no earning, then, their inability, genuine or fabricated it may be, to pay the school fees might encourage more people to come up with the same excuse. The teachers are also employees, and they are paid when their employers are paid. One aspect of this issue is that the teachers also have school-going children. If they do not get their salaries, then they too, would not be able to pay the school fee of their wards.

Parents didn’t get their salaries because they didn’t or couldn’t work because of the lockdown but the teachers have been working during this period and hence, are entitled to their emoluments. They have worked hard, upgraded themselves for the cumbersome task, have spent money from their pocket on internet data. It is disheartening to hear the teachers pleading with the students to pay their fees during the online classes. We owe much more than the salary to the teachers.

You may call it digging up the buried blunders if I say that the only cause of this situation is the unthoughtful privatisation of education. The decision was like setting the timer for the doomsday which is yet to arrive. The government generously allowed privatisation of education and neglected the government schools. Just a few years after it was done, education became a profitable business which also yielded respect and recognition in premium. Today, starting a middle-level private school is as easy as opening a grocery shop.

Why the government should be blamed alone?  Aren’t we all responsible for making the private schools indispensable? Why do we not send our children to government schools? Why is it considered that government schools are only for the children whose parents can’t afford to pay the hefty fees of the private schools? Two main reasons for this situation are allowing too much liberty to the private educational institutions and overlooking of the government educational institutions. On one side we say that education is a fundamental right and on the other, we have private institutions in a country of 70 crore poor people.

The economy of private schools is an open economy and there is no bar on the fee they charge. In addition, they enjoy various subsidies, concessions on tariffs, tax exemptions and provision of getting land at concessional price. With all these benefits, private schools reap handsome profits. They overburden the employees and recruit temporary staff to cut their salary bills. Other than the tuition fee and the transport fee which are legitimate, they levy Pupil Fund, Library Fee, Science Fee, Examination Fee and constantly devise the ways to rob the parents. In addition, they charge an unreasonable amount in the name of Annual Charges and Development Fund. As if their greed was not enough, the government has blessed them with the permission of increasing fee every year. Their cry of inadequate funds due to non-payment of the fee is a cold lie and is a matter of scrutiny. Any private school with an age of ten years or more and having six hundred to eight hundred students must be able to pay its employees for three to six months without receiving any fee. It is just that they do not want to consume the money they have accumulated.

There is no detector to ascertain who is capable of paying the fee despite the economic crisis and who is not. But exempting all the parents from paying a hundred per cent fee would be unfair. It was their decision to admit their wards in a private school and in this time of adversity they cannot shrug off their financial obligation towards these school. How can they show such callous ingratitude towards the teachers whom they have always applauded and boasted of the high standards of their teaching methods?

The parents are liable to pay only the tuition fee for the whole period until the schools do not start functioning. The school administration must also consider that the parents pay the fee for the summer break, autumn break and other vacations every year without asking questions, and they are complaining this time because they are in dire financial straits like everyone. The government must step in if the schools demand other charges too. This pandemic has done the damage, and now, we all have to come together to mend as much as is possible.

Whatever solution the concerned parties arrive at, they must ensure that the teachers are not deprived of their rightful emoluments and no child is forced to leave school because of his parent’s inability to pay the fee. We, as a country, must realise that education is not only the fundamental right but it is a fundamental need. It is also an opportune time for the government to relook its excessively non-restrictive policies towards private institutions.