“Dear Secretary! We Are Teachers, Not Beggars” – Prof.M.S.Rao

“It requires a lot of courage to become a teacher as everybody cannot become a teacher. If a parent is bad, children are spoiled; if a doctor neglects, the patient dies; if an engineer performs poorly, the infrastructure collapses; and if a teacher makes a mistake, the entire generation gets ruined.” – Prof.M.S.Rao


The faculty member eagerly waited for his salary at the end of month. He was not paid with salary but promised that he would be paid along with the next month salary. He was not paid salary by the management of a private educational institution led by the secretary even after two months of working sincerely. The faculty member was worried as he had financial commitments of paying monthly rent, purchasing groceries and paying the fee for his children’s education. He was constantly under tense. The secretary never bothered to cite the reasons for stoppage of the salary of few employees along with this faculty member. This is the fate of the faculty in various private educational institutions in India.

However, one faculty member was courageous and sought the appointment of the secretary. After waiting for few days for his appointment and after sending formal written letter to the secretary who was very much in the same city, the faculty member got an appointment. Finally, he met the secretary. Let us look at the conversation:

The secretary asks the faculty member, “What is your organizational contribution?”

The faculty member replies, “ I am handling 15 classes for a week, counseling and mentoring the students, played an instrumental role in training the people who go for jobs and as a result, few students have been placed and I am doing research and have few international publications.----“.

The secretary interrupts the faculty member, “Research is something your personal. I am not interested in your research as it is useful to you only not to my organization.”

The faculty member replies, “Research is an integral part of the teaching and it reinforces the teaching and both teaching and research go together.” The faculty member further added, “Whatever I earn that is for the livelihood of my family members and whatever I learn that is for my students. I read a lot and learn a lot and research a lot so that I can share my knowledge with my students thus shaping them as successful personalities and leaders”.

The secretary says, “I don’t agree with all that, you may go now.” The faculty member reiterates, “I need salary for the last two month as I have financial commitments.”

The secretary says, “I will see later and we will have further discussions.”

The faculty member says, “We had enough discussions, first you pay my salary of the last two months.”

Finally, the faculty member comes out without having concrete results. This is the fate of faculty members in various private educational institutions who constantly die with lot of pain and pressure having been caught between the devil and the deep sea where there are less opportunities to get into the right professional institutions and settle for less with the low profile institutions that are leeches who suck the blood of faculty members and mint handsome money through capitation fees and expand their educational institutions but don’t have the heart to pay salaries promptly.

Every faculty member thinks that stoppage of salary is the problem of an individual faculty member. There is no unity among the faculty members. The faculty members are intellectuals who have no flair for manipulations like promoters of a few private educational institutions do. They know their subject and teach well. They think up to that level only, not to the extent of manipulating others.

The entrepreneurs of educational institutions have access to local politicians and nexus with the authorities to sail through smoothly and also at times with criminals. If required, the entrepreneurs can use their money and muscle power to tame the dissent within their educational institutions. They can create fictitious complaints and might say that the faculty feedback is not good and fire them by not paying salaries.


Fate of Faculty:

The real estate agents, arrack contractors and few people with criminal background have donned the hat of entrepreneurs of educational institutions. These rogues have made education as prostitution. Several private educational institutions manipulate the statistical figures of the bench strength of the faculty to the officials of AICTE, JNTU and OU and their respective affiliated universities. Students don’t have the amenities like proper washrooms, proper drinking water and other facilities. At the time of inspections, the management of the educational institutions change the physical location of students to show rosy picture to the inspecting officials. And they warn the faculty with dire consequences if they raise their voice during inspections. The management arbitrarily removes the faculty who question these irregularities citing on the grounds of negative feedback or misconduct or on disciplinary grounds.


Solution:

There has to be crackdown on erring managements who browbeat and threaten the faculty and who trouble students. Besides, there has to be social security measures to save the plight of faculty. It is unfortunate that private educational institutions are not paying as per AICTE pay scale. There has to be a mechanism wherein healthy conditions and protection is provided to the faculty and students.


Conclusion:

Finally the faculty member emotionally says, “I took up this career not out of chance but by choice. Even though my salary is not paid, still I would love to serve as a faculty member as I have passion for teaching, I have passion for research and I have passion to shape the future of my students for building a greater India.” Jai Hind!