In Maharashtra, 75,000 junior college (classes XI-XII) teachers have threatened to boycott assessment of the state board’s higher secondary certificate exam papers unless the state government accedes to their long-pending demands relating to filling vacancies and raising remuneration of junior college teachers. According to the Maharashtra State Federation of Junior College Teachers’ Organisation (MSFJCTO), it has been protesting the government’s inaction on a list of 32 grievances for the past three years without avail.

Maharashtra — India’s most industrialised state (pop. 120 million) — hosts 1,576 unaided and 7,500 government-aided junior colleges. Blaming successive governments of neglecting the service conditions of junior college teachers, MSFJCTO says teachers in the state’s higher secondary education institutions are at the mercy of college managements with the government reluctant to implement its government resolution (GR) of February 26, 2014, under which it notified an intent to progressively convert the state’s 1,576 unaided colleges into government-aided institutions by 2019. However, the notification “remains only on paper” with none of the colleges receiving any aid from the BJP government of Maharashtra. 

Conversion of the state’s 1,576 private unaided junior colleges into aided colleges is an issue of critical importance to their teachers because aided colleges are obliged to pay faculty minimum salaries decreed by Pay Commissions established by the Central government every ten years to compensate its 3.8 million pampered babus (bureaucrats) for inflation. As soon as Pay Commission scales are announced, it’s customary for state government employees to demand pay parity with Central government employees, which includes government and private-aided school, college and university teachers. 

For school and college teachers, transformation of private into private-aided institutions is critical because salary differences are huge. Currently, private unaided junior colleges pay teachers Rs.10,000-12,000 per month. Private-aided and government colleges pay a minimum of Rs.45,000 under the Sixth Pay Commission award. The Seventh Pay Commission’s award implemented on January 1, 2016 has raised Central government bureaucrats and university teachers’ pay by 22-28 percent. Currently, Maharashtra’s private-aided and government junior colleges are paid Sixth Pay Commission scales. But implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission’s award is around the corner. Hence MSFJCTO’s grievance. 

“The five-year delay in implementing its February 2014 resolution has impacted at least 20,000 teachers who are paid a pittance of what they would have rightly earned as per the Sixth Pay Commission’s award. In some cases, private unaided college teachers have not been paid at all. But with few teaching jobs available, they continue to work hoping the government will start implementing its 2014 GR soon,” says Anil Deshmukh, president, MSFJCTO. 

This mess in critically important pre-collegiate higher secondary education which determines undergrad college admissions, has been compounded by another GR of October 23, 2017 which decrees tougher criteria for pay increments of all teachers in aided government schools. Teachers will now be eligible for annual increments only if their school is recognised as an ‘A’ grade institution according to parameters set by the state government’s ‘progressive learning scheme’ — an initiative to improve learning outcomes. Secondary and higher secondary teachers will be eligible for promotions only if 80 percent of their students average 80 percent-plus in board exams. 

Since December 8 last year, MSFJCTO has been staging statewide demonstrations culminating in a jail-bharo protest on February 2. But despite promises by the state’s education minister, Vinod Tawde, to resolve most of the teachers’ grievances before the higher secondary board exams that started on February 21, that promise hasn’t been fulfilled. Frustrated with the state’s apathy, junior college teachers who are usually busy with assessments-related meetings at this time every year, have stayed away from pre-exam confabulations. The higher secondary board exam results need to be out before the June 5 deadline to enable students to meet undergrad college admission dates. The auguries aren’t good. 

Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)