No honorarium for guest teachers in 3 govt schools

The guest teachers working in three government schools run by the Madikeri City Municipal Council have not received their honorarium.

As a result of this, the teachers are struggling to eke out a living.

The condition is similar in the CMC-run Primary School, the A V School at Mahadevapet and the Hindustani School on Hill Road.

There are as many as 150 children studying in these schools. All the nine guest teachers working in these schools have not been paid honorarium.

Many times

The issue was raised in the Council meeting of the CMC several times in the past. The members had also urged the state government to pay the guest teachers their honorarium.

Many of the guest teachers in the three schools have BEd or DEd qualification but are working for merely Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 a month. Now, they have been denied honorarium the last few months.

Municipality member K G Peter told DH, “A proposal was submitted to the Department of Public Instruction, seeking payment of the honorarium for the guest teachers. The Department, however, has not turned an eye towards the issue.”

He added, “A school development committee was constituted in 2016, under the chairmanship of former CMC president Shreemati Bangera, to monitor the three schools. The committee had decided to earmark Rs 10 lakh for the payment to the guest teachers. Later, however, the recommendations of the committee were completely ignored. The committee has now lost its identity.”

Some teachers are leaving their jobs citing poor payment of honorarium. The parents have also urged the authorities to fix the honorarium for teachers. To ensure that the government schools should not close down and poor children are not denied education, Peter pays Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 from his own pocket to these teachers.