Over 1 lakh teachers from schools all over the state are going to ring school bells together for a few minutes on July 25. They are demanding non-salary grants from the government, permanent posts and better wages for thousands of shikshan sevaks in the state.
“We will protest by continuously ringing school bells for a few minutes so that the government wakes up to our plight. We will also have organised a protest march at Azad Maidan and places all over the state,” said Anil Bornare, head of the Maharashtra Rajya Shikshak Parishad.
The schools are protesting because government-aided schools have not been paid non-salary grants by the government since 2008. The grants finance expenses such as electricity bills, water charges, property taxes and other establishment expenses. Without government aid, schools all over the state are finding it difficult to make ends meet.
“The aided schools, unlike the unaided ones, serve the lower and middle strata of society with similar high quality education at a lower fee. On one hand the government is trying to regulate the fees charged by schools, and on the other it is not providing us aid. We are running at a loss. If we raise fees, parents get angry, and if we don’t we will not be able to provide all the facilities to the children,” said Gregory Lobo, head of the Archdiocesan Board of Education, which runs hundreds of convent schools in the city.
School education minister Rajendra Darda has always maintained that the government does not have the funds to continue supporting schools. A senior education official said, “If an organisation wants to run a school, it should do so at its own expense. We do not have the funds to give non-salary grants.”
The teachers’ demands include permanent positions for shikshan sevaks. “Even after working for five to six years the shiksan sevaks are still hired on temporary basis and are getting a pittance,” said Bornare.
