After a month-long Diwali vacation this year, students in government schools of Chhattisgarh had an extra month of holiday.
The 142,000-strong para-teachers, or teachers on contract in the state, went on strike, bringing teaching to a halt.
The para-teachers were demanding higher wages and better service conditions.
“For the past two years, the teachers have been going on strike (frequently),” said retired teacher Prabhu Lal Yadav, who spent the entire month struggling with the 73 students at the Kasavahi Primary School in Dhamtari, 135 km south of Raipur.
Chhattisgarh is not the only state that has para-teachers. Many others including Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,
Jharkhand, Orissa, and Gujarat have employed para-teachers to meet teacher shortage in schools.
The term ‘para-teacher’ has no formal definition. Loosely they are those who are not on the payroll. In most cases, they do not have the requisite qualifications. Called siksha karmis, gurujis and vidya sahayak in various states, para-teachers are taken on contract by state governments, paid one-fourth the salary of regular teachers, and have worse service conditions in terms of holidays, etc.
Teacher shortage
According to official estimates, India has over 1 million government schools, which mostly cater to children of the disadvantaged: They have a deficit of 500,000 teachers. The centrally funded Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA, or Education for all) programme, now in its eighth year, still runs short of almost 250,000 teachers. The effect: about 47 per cent of children drop out at the primary stage.
Teacher shortage
According to official estimates, India has over 1 million government schools, which mostly cater to children of the disadvantaged: They have a deficit of 500,000 teachers. The centrally funded Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA, or Education for all) programme, now in its eighth year, still runs short of almost 250,000 teachers. The effect: about 47 per cent of children drop out at the primary stage.
A review of the SSA done in August points out: “The term ‘teacher’ now encompasses wide variations in qualifications, service conditions and remunerations …”
Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have stopped hiring regular teachers. For instance, there are about 40,000 regular teachers in Chhattisgarh against 142,000 para-teachers.
At the primary level of education in Jharkhand, the number of para-teachers is 79,000 whereas the number of regular teachers is 47,000. The number of students in government-run primary schools is 6.4 million. So the number of students per para-teacher is 81.
With 5.8 million students in about 57,000 government schools in Chhattisgarh, a para-teacher handles, on average, 41 students.
The genesis of the problem
“When state governments faced the pressure of universalising elementary education under the SSA, they hired para-teachers paying paltry sums,” said Saroj Pandey, reader at the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT).
States realised that they could hire more para-teachers than regular teachers without increasing their education budget.
While regular teachers enjoy sixth pay commission scales and other government service conditions, para-teachers work on an annual contract and at much lower salaries, sometimes at as little as Rs 1,500 per month.
Many states successfully managed to address the shortage of teachers in rural schools with the help of para-teachers. In Chhattisgarh, 72,000 para-teachers have been hired in the last two years. Bihar has recruited 150,000 teachers since 2006 on contract.
On December 10, the Supreme Court ordered the Bihar government to appoint 34,540 trained teachers within six weeks.
“We cannot accept the demand (made by para-teachers) for paying sixth pay commission scales because we don’t have the money. We are spending Rs 1,341 crore to pay the current salary of 142,000 para teachers. This will double to Rs 2,700 crore if we agree to their demands,” said Nand Kumar, secretary (school education), Chhattisgarh government.
Falling quality
While states provided teachers to schools, serious concerns have been raised on the quality of teaching.
“Para-teachers are hired locally. They are given training ranging from seven days to a month. Many are untrained in
pedagogy and do the job mechanically,” said Bal Chandra Sahay, who works with non-government organisation Pratham and is in charge of conducting the NGO’s annual education survey in Chhattisgarh.
This policy of para-teachers has also led to many cases of litigation demanding regularisation of services, formation of para-teacher unions and agitations.
“A lot of teaching time has been lost in strikes by para-teachers in Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh,” Sahay said.
Legal factors
Once it is notified, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, will give five years for teachers to acquire the minimum qualification specified by the government.
“States have to stop hiring para-teachers once the RTE is implemented. The qualifications and salaries have to be the same for all teachers,” said Anita Rampal, professor at Delhi University’s education department.
But state governments — more interested in short-term solutions — are not looking at the consequences of the RTE Act. Until they focus on teacher education and training, millions of students in government schools of the country will have to make do with unqualified and often temporary teachers.