This blog is inscribed by Preeti Shaw
During the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown in India, many teachers have been adversely hit and lost their jobs. Contractual teachers and teachers in private institutions have tenuous job security and are liable to lose their jobs especially during economic slumps. However, teachers perform one of the most significant functions in society, viz., shaping the future generation, and therefore it can be said that the future of a society rests in their hands. Their work is no less important than that of the public servant, as without teachers imparting education, society is liable to become dysfunctional. Therefore a teacher’s employment needs to be protected by legislation whereby their job would remain intact even during the times of disasters and economic depressions.
INTRODUCTION
Teaching constitutes one of the most important professions in the world. Teachers bear the responsibility of shaping the future foundation of society by training young minds. Therefore teachers need to be given certain exclusive rights in terms of employment, especially in the time of unforeseen disasters, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. In the time of the severe economic slump that has been brought about by the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown, there are widespread instances of wage-cuts and retrenchment in many employment sectors. The terms “layoff” and “retrenchment” are defined in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 as the following:
a) “Layoff” means “the failure, refusal or inability of an employer on account of the shortage of coal, power or raw materials or the accumulation of stocks or the breakdown of machinery to give employment to a workman whose name is borne on the muster rolls of his industrial establishment and who has not been retrenched.”[S.2(kkk)][1]
b) “Retrenchment” means “the termination by the employer of the service of a workman for any reason whatsoever, otherwise than as a punishment inflicted by way of disciplinary action”. [S.2(oo)][2]
Retrenchment is different than a layoff. So when an employer terminates the service of his employee or employees due to a surplus of workers or to reduce loss, it is an example of retrenchment and this is something that has been happening in the education sector too. Teachers in India and across the world are losing their jobs during the COVID-19 induced lockdown. However, the employment of teachers needs protection from retrenchment because they perform the role of building society by educating students who will be the future pillars of society.
TEACHERS IMPACTED BY PANDEMIC
In most private schools, colleges, and universities in India, and many government ones too, teachers are hired on contract on an ad-hoc basis. Guest lecturers in Universities and colleges fall in this category. These teachers have lesser wages and tenuous job-security, whereby they can be dismissed at any given point of time.[3] During the COVID-19 pandemic period, these contract-based teachers are usually the first ones to be sacrificed in the name of retrenchment.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) data shows that 9.1 million teachers worldwide have been adversely hit by the global pandemic.[4] There has been a complete overhaul of the education system during the pandemic where classes are being held over electronic devices and all communication has been confined to the electronic media. So, e.g., if a teacher, who is elderly and not technically sound, is a contractual worker and fails to grasp the new system due to lack of knowledge or devices, he may easily be terminated from the job. According to a newspaper report 60, 000 teachers in the state of Haryana alone lost their jobs after lockdown due to the pandemic.[5] According to one news report, a private school teacher, who had done post-graduation in political science, had to take up manual labor to feed his family after losing his job due to the lockdown and pandemic.[6]
TEACHING: AN IMPORTANT FUNCTION OF SOCIETY
However, the termination of a teacher’s employment should not be equated with or held to be in par with the termination of employment in any other profession. A teacher’s job is not just merely discharging of certain services as in other sectors of work but the functioning of society is dependent on proper education received by people, who will later be the architects of society, in their childhood and youth as well as on the person imparting the education. Moreover, it needs to be remembered that teachers are dealing with actual human beings and the characters of every person on earth is to a large extent shaped by the teachers who taught them. Therefore it is no ordinary job and a teacher not only needs to be accorded the highest respect in society but the minimum that the law and the government can ensure for teachers, especially for contractual teachers, is job security.
In Rattan Lal and Ors. v. State of Haryana and Ors., the Supreme Court observed, “These [ad-hoc] teachers who constitute the bulk of the educated unemployed are compelled to accept these jobs on an ad-hoc basis with miserable conditions of service…The policy of ‘ad-hocism’ followed by the State Government for a long period has led to the breach of Article 14 and Article 16 of the Constitution. Such a situation cannot be permitted to last any longer.”[7]
So if a teacher or a lecturer who has served faithfully in an institution and dedicated their life in helping the students, is terminated for any reason other than punitive ones, it is a gross injustice since their service is no less than that of a public servant who enjoys job security and full payment of wages even in times of economic depression or disasters like pandemics. The role of teachers’ unions in this respect would also be very important in the future. The teacher’s union in India has a long history and exercises considerable political powers that can determine the fate of education.[8] Therefore they should yield this power to bring about a change in the employment policy of teachers.
Finally, students get attached to certain teachers throughout their student lives and it may be psychologically harmful to them to get separated from a teacher they looked up to and benefited from. Even in higher education, students may receive the best instructions from a guest faculty, and getting rid of a guest faculty during the pandemic for reasons of surplus or any such reason, may lead to stunting the students’ growth.
CONCLUSION
Teachers unions should be strengthened and become functional in every institution. The collective bargaining power of the union can demand that teachers, especially contract teachers, should be assured of job security as the service of teachers in the education sector is what the entire society is dependent on. If there were no teachers imparting education, society would have crumbled. Therefore teachers need to be acknowledged for the role they play in society and their employment needs to have the security that public servants have.
[1] Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 [2] ibid. [3] Nick Robinson and Varun Gauri, Education, Labour Rights, and Incentives: Contract Teacher Cases in the Indian Courts, The World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper Series, Vol. 32.(2010) [4] PTI, New task forces to help 2.7 million teachers in India hit by COVID-19 lockdown, The Economic Times, May 28 2020 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/services/education/new-task-forces-to-help-2-7-million-teachers-in-india-hit-by-covid-19 lockdown/articleshow/76072685.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst [5] Siddharth Tiwari, Haryana: One lakh teachers and non-teaching staff lost jobs, Times News Network, July 12 2020http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/76863917.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst [6] Rajesh Asnani, Raghottam Koppar, S Raja Reddy, A A, Sacked teachers, graduates turn to manual labor after losing jobs due to lockdown, The Indian Express, 29 August 2020 https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/jun/04/sacked-teachers-grads-turn-to-manual-labour-2151960.html [7] Rattan Lal and Ors. v. State of Haryana and Ors., A.I.R. 1987 S.C. 478 [8] Saumya Gupta, Perspectives of Teacher’s Union on Challenges to Education in India, Centre for Civil Society, CCS Working Paper no. 304(2013)
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