The TDP national general secretary Nara Lokesh on Thursday said teachers working in private educational institutions were in the throes of a serious financial crisis and urged the government to provide succour to the fraternity.
In a letter addressed to Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, Mr. Lokesh cited the suicide by a private school correspondent and his wife at Koilkuntla of Kurnool district due to mounting debts, and said it reflected the intensity of the problem being faced by private schools.
Pointing to the fact that financial distress drove the couple to resort to the extreme step on the day when schools were reopened after a long gap, he said the over 12,000 private schools in the State provided employment to nearly 1.25 lakh teachers. “The government should wake up to the problem before more such suicides happen,” he said.
Even now, he said, many teachers were receiving only 60-70% of their salaries and there was no clarity on when the retrenched teachers would be reinstated. Teachers were not paid salaries since March last year due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that necessitated lockdown. In the last five months, the impact of the economic recession resulting from the pandemic had been showing a telling effect on nearly 5 lakh teaching and non-teaching staff in schools, colleges and universities, he said.
Contract staff
He said the plight of the contract teachers in government junior colleges was worse. Reports appearing in the media suggested that unable to suffer pangs of hunger, many of them had turned vegetable vendors, construction labourers or taken to other menial jobs. The TDP leader specifically mentioned the case of a Telugu lecturer in Kadapa district with a Ph.D who had started working as a farm labour to support his family.
Referring to the neighbouring States like Telangana and Karnataka which had been helping private school teachers in the form of cash and kind, he urged the State government to announce a relief package for them and prevent further suicides.
