TIRUPATI: A thirty-four-year-old teacher, who taught at a private school for five years and holds an MA-B.Ed, worked as a daily wage labourer in the rural areas here for the past several months. He rejoined the school after classes resumed on August 16.
His colleague, who drove a taxi during this time for a livelihood, also rejoined the same school now. Their fate hasn’t changed a bit, though. They are now being sent out to meet parents and force them pay the fee dues of the students. Most of the budget schools are barely managing to collect fees from their students, and teachers are forced to act more like collection agents than as educators.
Many, who had been working in private schools, junior colleges and even professional colleges, have been forced to reach out to parents for collection of fee dues of the last year and this year as well. They are facing an uphill task in convincing parents to get the pending dues paid.
“The harsh economic climate has led to more parents defaulting on payment of their children's school fees last year. Even in the second year of the pandemic, we are struggling to collect fees from parents. As a result, our debt to banks increased exponentially and we have no option but to pursue the parents’ unsettled payments. We are sending our teachers to make the
parents pay the fees dues,” said the principal at a private school in
Tirupati.
Teachers say that, in some cases, their salaries are being put on hold and
they are told there will be no salary hike if they failed to complete the
set targets as collection agents.
“The target fixed for each teacher is to convince 10 parents and this target
should be completed by the end of August. However, some teachers could not convince even one parent so far. They are advised to collect fee dues from at least five parents by August 25, failing which their salaries will be
kept on hold,” read a circular of a private school.
Teachers say most schools who had collected fees until April this year are
also using the same strategy as an excuse to not pay up. “Managements also
asked us to collect the fees for this academic year too, failing which they
would cut/delay our salaries. We request the government to act against such
schools,” said a teacher who works at a private school in the AIR by-pass
road area.
