E-Paper
In Telangana and Andhra, pvt school teachers now struggle as daily wage earners
Thousands of teachers are struggling for jobs after many private schools in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh closed down in the aftermath of the lockdown to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.
Thirty-year-old Payili Satyanarayana, a post-graduate in Telugu literature from Telangana’s Nalgonda district who was working as a teacher, had never imagined in his life that he would ever work as a daily wage labourer in cotton fields.
But he is now compelled to do it to feed his small family, as the Covid-19 pandemic turned his life topsy-turvy. “I was working as a teacher in a private school in Suryapet town for a paltry salary of ₹15,000 a month. Yet, it was a noble profession with respect in society. But the pandemic has made my life miserable,” Satyanarayana said.
As his school was forced to close down abruptly due to the lockdown, Satyanarayana returned to his native village Aakaram in Shaligouraram block of Nalgonda district along with his wife and eight-month old son. “The school management paid me just ₹5,000 for the month of March and threw up its hands. We had no other source of income to survive,” he lamented.
Having no other option, Satyanarayana joined the other village youth to enroll himself as a labourer under National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) to earn his living. “I was paid ₹150 per day as wages for doing desilting work in a local tank. But that was hardly enough. Later, I joined as a labourer in cotton fields, where I am getting around ₹300 per day,” he said.
The economic crisis has also forced him to swallow pride of being a post-graduate and take up any work to survive.
“If I start thinking about my qualification, I will die of starvation,” Satyanarayana quipped.
It is the same story with 40-year old Zaheer Ahmed Sheik, a double-post graduate from Mancherial district in northern Telangana, who worked as a Hindi teacher in a corporate school in Hyderabad for a monthly salary of ₹15,000 till the Coronavirus pandemic struck.
“Since I cannot survive in Hyderabad without a job, I came back to my town and have been working at an LPG warehouse doing loading and unloading of gas cylinders. I get ₹500 per week. Besides, I also do painting of buildings. In all, I am earning ₹5,000 a month,” said Zaheer, a father of two teen-aged sons. “I am scared if I think about the future,” he said.
Tumki Praveen, a mathematics teacher from Jagtial town, frantically searched for a respectable job after he lost one in a private school. Finally, he ended up as a fruit seller in the market. “What else can I do? I don’t have money even to do a petty business,” he said.
While Balaraju from Siddipet town, a science teacher, has taken to selling snacks (mirchi bajjis) and other eatables in a roadside kiosk, Karunakar, a post-graduate in English from the same town is earning ₹400 per day working as a construction labourer and Ganne Jamuna from Jagtial has taken to her family profession of beedi making.
According to Sheik Shabbir Ali, president of Telangana Private Teachers Federation, there are 11,700 recognised private schools in the state. “As per the official statistics, as many as 1,20,350 teachers were working in these schools, but unofficially, the number is more than 2.5 lakh. All of them are now on the roads,” he said.
Though some corporate schools and big institutions have resumed online classes for the students, Shabbir Ali said, they engaged only a few teachers for it. “In many districts, several big schools have formed into a group and engaged common teachers to take up online classes for their students,” he said.
In the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, the situation is no different. Several private school teachers, who were suddenly rendered jobless, are forced to sell vegetables, work as construction labourers and daily wage workers.
“I earned a lot of respect among students as a maths teacher and principal of a private school. But now, I have lost my job and am forced to go from street to street to sell eggs,” rued Nageshwara Rao of Jangareddygudem in West Godavari district.
Didde Ambedkar, president of Andhra Pradesh Private School Teachers’ Union, said there are more than 12,000 recognised private schools in the state that provided employment to 1.25 lakh teachers. “Many schools have not paid salaries to the teachers since February, much before the lockdown was imposed,” he claimed.
