Teachers Or Cheaters

We are quite aware with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's slogan of "minimum government-maximum governance". It is one of the agenda of Modi during his campaign in 2014 general election. The place where this needs to be implemented the most is government elementary schools with slight modification as "minimum teachers-maximum teachings".

Without any doubt, the government school teachers are the biggest cheaters and a burden on the economy. The salary of the government teachers is much higher than the private sector teachers (In UP, the difference is 20 times). But rather than working harder and better, the government teachers are often seen "missing in action". Karthik Muralidharan's 2014 study estimates an absence rate of 23.6 percent. When they are present, they spend much of their time in non-teaching activities or teaching with little professional competence, and exercise little effort. Some teachers don't even see for six months but despite that, they get their full salary due to some absurd rules. This is "White Corruption".

According to a data, in 2011-12, the cost of education was Rs14,165 per schooling year per student in a government school. The cost of sending a student to a private school was significantly lower just at Rs5,961. In other words, in a typical state, a student in a government school costs more than twice as much per year as parents spend on a child in a private school. It doesn't mean that the students at a government school learn more and better than the students at a private school. Actually, Private teachers work harder with a modest fee and therefore, students learn better in a private school compared to the lazy government teachers who get huge money with a very little or no effort where students can only learn "how to be lazy and corrupt" from them.

The politician's kids don't go to the government schools because what happens there is well known to them. So why the government is paying the excess amount to the so-called teachers? Political pressure may be the answer. These teachers have made a group and they protest together demanding an increment in their already inflated wages. Certainly, these are not "wages" but "subsidy". Soon there will be an election in Bihar and teachers are ready for their illogical demands let's see whether government resist or succumb to these cheaters.

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Where Frontline is the key to the Bottomline