There is neither attrition nor recruitment of teachers in private schools that usually happens at a frantic pace at this time of the year, due to the economic impact caused by COVID-19.
Though this development is not entirely surprising, the managements of private schools say the slump in new admissions and difficulty in collecting fees are causes for deep concern.
The private schools, by and large, are understood to be primarily concerned with conduct of classes for students of IX to XII, and the second wave of COVID-19 surge seems to have made matters worse for a large section of teachers.
Leave alone fresh recruitment, according to a functionary of a trust running a private school in the region, only teachers who handle classes for higher levels are given at least sixty to seventy percent of their usual salary.
“We are able to pay only one-third of the salary for the rest of the teachers since there is a dormancy in remittance of fees by the students,” he said.
According to a principal of another private school who requested anonymity, some of the schools find themselves in an unenviable situation of taking bank loans for meeting the recurring expenditure on account of teachers' salaries. Most of the schools, however, pay in full to non-teaching staff who do not have the work from home option.
Not all parents educating their wards in private schools are economically sound. “In any school for that matter, less than fifty percent of the students are wards of senior government officials or businessmen. The rest are from families in the lower-middle class group for whom educating children in English-medium schools symbolises pride. These parents are now struggling to pay the fee,” the school head said.
In the current situation, the schools have no way of singling out students and reminding them of the fee balance as they run the risk of coming under adverse notice of the school education department.
The teachers lament they have already been sounded by the management of further pay cuts.
