Nearly 15000 teachers from private schools have signed a petition against the directive by Government of Karnataka banning the collection of school fees from parents due to growing economic insecurity amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Several other state departments like Rajasthan, Punjab, Odisha, Haryana, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu also followed suit in issuing such orders.
The petition on Change.org started two weeks ago gained traction on Monday, April 21 against the March 30, 2020 order of preventing private unaided schools from collecting fees. The online petition claims that with this order in force, it won’t take long for private institutions across the state and the country to shut down due to bankruptcy and further increase the unemployment ratio, which is at an all-time high.
The Karnataka teachers believe similar moratoriums on fee payments across states will have a rippling effect across the country. It also mentioned that over two crore teaching and non-teaching staff across five lakhs schools would be majorly affected putting a major risk on their livelihood and survival. Apart for teachers – managers, cooks, cleaners, bus drivers, security guards who constitute the non-teaching staff is also highly impacted by this order.
The private school education constitutes 43 percent of the total educational set-up in India and imposing such restrictions on them would plunge the system into turmoil forcing many such institutions in winding-up their operations along with jeopardizing the future of Indian students. The petition pondered over the literacy levels (according to the Ministry of Human Resource Development in 2018) which stood at a dismal 69.1 percent which is 17 percent below the world’s average, causing poor employability and hence, limited to no real growth.
According to several teachers association, similar petitions will be initiated to reach out to the various state governments to withdraw their orders on this ban. Many teachers have ever since been commenting on the petition at Change.org. Priya Promod, a teacher said, “I believe that a teacher’s work goes much beyond the classroom and during this lockdown situation, teachers have lived up to reach and deliver to the students beyond the school walls. We request the government to consider our petition in the best interest of the teaching community. Management will not be able to sustain and pay salary for the school community if this is imposed”
Another teacher, Riya Banerjee too shared similar views, “Being a teacher I should give knowledge to society. But still, it’s my profession also. I have to feed my children at the end of the day.”
