By Barnes Mawrie, SDB
How shameful for the government that these teachers have to resort to this extreme measure in order to get their rightful pay. With no salaries how will they survive and how will they feed their children and meet the essential requirements of their families? This is highly immoral and can by no means be condoned. We have not heard of other government employees’ salaries being withheld for months and months.
I am always struck by this famous saying of Henry B. Adams which says, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” This proves the noble profession of a teacher. Developed nations value the role of teachers and they are looked upon with great respect, as builders of a nation. It may surprise us to know that these countries have the highest salaries for the teachers. The three countries who top the list are Luxembourg, Switzerland and Germany. A teacher in Luxembourg for example gets $138,000 a year, that is a whopping amount of about 2 crores. The reason that these countries give for this policy towards the teachers, is the fact that they consider teaching as the noblest profession of all. It is sad to note that among 33 countries who pay good salaries to their teachers, India features nowhere in the list. This speaks volume of the attitude of our country towards these nation builders who slog day in and day out in order to shape the lives of our future citizens.
How pathetic it is to witness these days hundreds of our teachers protesting before the government for the clearance of their salaries. One category of teachers after the other has to pressurize the government for their rights. Recently, the ad dhoc school teachers of Meghalaya had staged an indefinite sit-in protest in front of the secretariat for an increment of salaries. Finally, after days of protest and negotiations they managed to get a positive assurance from the government. I am told by some SSA teachers who started their indefinite sit-in protest yesterday that they have not received their salaries for the past 6 to 7 months besides the arrears. How shameful for the government that these teachers have to resort to this extreme measure in order to get their rightful pay. With no salaries how will they survive and how will they feed their children and meet the essential requirements of their families? This is highly immoral and can by no means be condoned. We have not heard of other government employees’ salaries being withheld for months and months. But why are our teachers treated like third class citizens who can be easily exploited at will?
The fact that the salaries are being withheld for months, raises many questions such as whether our country values the services of our teachers? Why does the Government of India withhold the salaries of so many SSA teachers after the service they have rendered to the country? It is a well known fact that India does not invest heavily on education like in other countries. The budget for education for 2022 is just a little more than 1 lakh crore rupees while the defense budget is more than 5 lakh crore rupees. This proves how shabbily our governments (both central and state) treat the builders of our society.
The fact that teachers are not being paid their salaries for months, has many ramifications: first of all it affects the nobility of this profession for the poor teachers have to resort to begging for what is just and rightful for them. It is greatly humiliating for teachers to go and sit in protest on roadsides for days and nights. Perhaps the CM and the Education Minister should also go and sit in protest in front of the office of the Union Education Minister in order to get the money released as soon as possible. Secondly, many teachers are forced to absent themselves from schools in order to participate in their rightful protest. This means that very little teaching is done in schools and consequently the students are the losers. How long can this go on without affecting adversely the life and future of our poor children? Thirdly, many of the teachers are parents with their children at home. How can we accept the fact that these parents have to leave their children at home and come to spend their days and nights away from their families for an unavoidable cause of securing what is rightful to them?
Fourthly, this government’s attitude of “I don’t care” is extremely unethical and it demoralizes our teachers who are the victims of such an unjust and inhuman policy. How can our nation be blessed if we continue to victimize thousands of our teachers depriving them even of their means of survival? In this regard, I implore upon the state government to make all out efforts and not leave no stone unturned, in order to relieve the anxiety and suffering of our teachers. It is my conviction that “a nation that knows how to respect and treat with dignity its own teachers, is a great nation and it is surely on the path to development and progress. Instead a nation that despises its teachers is a doomed nation.” God bless our teachers!