The coronavirus pandemic has led to a reduction in salaries for private school teachers in India. It has also led to delayed paychecks, resulting in these teachers raising complaints with education regulators.
Private schools in India are forcing their employees to take mandatory pay cuts and delaying their salaries during this lockdown period. The education sector is mostly considered to be recession-proof, but the coronavirus crisis has not spared the sector.
Reduction of pay for private school teachers
Such was the case with an assistant professor for civil engineering in Telangana who chose to remain anonymous in an interview with a local news agency. The assistant professor said he had received two messages from the institution. One of the messages asked him to accept the pay cut and the next notified him that there may be delays in the payment of his salary.
This has been the case for many other private school tutors who have also received similar texts or memos in the region. Manu Kumar, a teacher in an Odisha college, also received official communication from his school asking him to take a 30 percent pay cut. The school told him that if he refused to take the pay cut, they would end up firing him and going for a cheaper option during this crisis.
Financial problems during the pandemic lockdown
The dilemma of his job during the crisis, with a lot of institutions already closed for re-hiring, such threats are working in favor of these institutions. The workers are forced by circumstances to accept these pay cuts due to limited options available currently.
This is not only happening in Telangana, but entire India is seeing laying off of private school teachers in colleges and universities, who account for over 580,000. There have also been pay cuts across states in India during this period and the vulnerable workers employed on contracts are seeing their contracts terminated or reduced also.
Regulators intervention
The situation has resulted in multiple private teachers filing complaints with regulators. The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), for instance, noted there had been an increase in the number of complaints they were receiving of teachers whose salaries had been withheld.
AICTE sent a letter to these colleges and private schools urging them to desist from withholding salaries. In the letter, they noted that some staff had not received their March salaries. The letter also noted that, for some staff, the issue has been ongoing for months dating from as far back as February. They asked these colleges and private schools to release salaries owed to their employees and avoid causing unnecessary pay cuts during this difficult period.
H. Chaturvedi, alternate president, Education Promotion Society for India said it almost amounted to a crime cutting education sector workers’ salaries at this time. Considerations should have been put in place to address the issue in a more civil manner.
