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Aakanksha N Bhardwaj
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, October 23
There are various issues which are being faced by teachers who have been teaching students for the past eight years under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA). After putting in eight years of service, the teachers, who started with Rs 16,000 and are working on a contract basis, have been started getting Rs 42,000 per month now after years of protest.
And now in the new notification, which have been released by the Education Department, it has been stated that the teachers under the RMSA and the SSA will be regularised but at a reduced salary of mere Rs 15,000. This has led to acrimony among the teachers.
The Tribune talks to a few teachers of the 8,886 teachers to zero in on the grave problems they are already suffering for the past many years without being regularised.
Raj Kumar while sharing his grief said: “Sometimes, I question myself am I really a teacher? Is this what a teacher goes through?”
Kumar said he was suffering a lot due to his job. Kumar, who is from Jalandhar, is posted in Government Middle School, Hardo Putli in Amritsar, which is around 115 km from Jalandhar.
Kumar, who has done, MA in English and Political Science, is 44 and has not got married yet. He says that nobody wants to marry off their daughter to him, with a job where there is no certainty.
“I belong to an economically weak family. Along with the family of my younger brother and our mother, we stay in a one-marla house,” he said.
“Can you imagine what amount of money is spent only in travelling from Jalandhar to Amritsar. Now, I have taken a room in the holy city, but life is not easy,” Kumar said.
Sharing another grief of his life, Kumar said he lost his father two years ago as his father was disturbed because he was not married yet and working on a contractual basis.
He said he was appointed in 2011 and since then he had been posted in Amritsar.
“Earlier, it was another school where I did not get even a single holiday owing to shortage of staff,” he said.
Raj Kumar said: “Saadi taan umar edda hi langh gayi, hun te retirement di umar aa jaani hai, hun ki Rs 15,000 te regular karna (I have lived my whole life suffering from this agony, now the age of retirement will come. There is nothing left for me to get regularised at Rs 15,000.”
Renuka Rani’s life is also in trouble. Working as a science mistress in Government Senior Secondary Girls’ School, Bhogpur, she earns singe-handedly as her husband is not able to work due to colour blindness. She has done MSc Physics and BEd. Renuka is living on rent and has not received her salary for the past six months.
She said her family had been living in despondency.
She is taking financial help from her relatives, friends and some of the colleagues who are appointed on a regular basis.
“Earlier, when we were getting our salaries, we used to take money from my friends as we knew that we will pay them back. But now after knowing that Rs 15,000 will be credited as salary in our account, how are we going to pay back the debt. No one will lend us money from now onwards,” said 31-year-old Renuka, adding that at present in the absence of the salary, it is getting difficult for her to even buy ration for the family.
“I have a five-year-old daughter and it is getting difficult for me to give her any healthy food to eat,” she said.
“After fighting for seven years since 2011, we held several protests and dharnas to get our salaries increased from Rs 16,000 to Rs 42,000. And now, this sudden reduction to Rs 15,000 is giving us jitters. Aage guzara kaise hoga, pata nahee (Don’t know how will we survive in the coming days,” she said.
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