Kerala teacher once lauded for rowing to school, now on strike for her posting

It was in September 2018, for National Teachers’ Day, that The News Minute featured KR Ushakumari, who rowed a boat and trekked four kilometers every morning to teach at a school in the middle of a forest in Kunnathumala, Thiruvananthapuram. Ushakumari, running the single-teacher school -- Agasthya Ega Adhyapaka Vidyalaya -- won a lot of appreciation that year, several media featuring her. Two days ago, Ushakumari left a very desperate note on Facebook for her friends, writing about the tough situation she is in, and how she is on the verge of a suicide.

On Friday, she began a hunger strike in front of the school, raising two demands of the government – to make jobs of teachers who have worked for long in single-teacher schools permanent, and to pay the pending salaries.

On a phone call to TNM, Ushakumari said that she was driven to desperate measures after the job that she did so much for, has paid her little in return. The teacher, like others running single-teacher schools across Kerala, has not got her salary the past five months. But her bigger worry is about not being made permanent, even after working on the job for 20 years.

The single-teacher schools in forests and other remote areas across the state had been a Central government project called Multi-Grade Learning Centre (MGLC), coming under the District Primary Education. It was later taken up by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). “However, in 2012, the central government stopped the funds and the scheme came under the state’s General Education Department,” says Ushakumari.

There were not enough children in many of these schools to convert it into lower primary schools. Ushakumari teacher’s school in Kunnathumala, set up in 1999, only has classes from 1 to 4. Presently there are about 14 kids there.

“Initially the payments came on time, but then salaries began getting delayed. With the Right To Education (RTE) Act coming into effect, all teachers at these schools were required to have done their Teachers Training Course. This was not the case since few qualified teachers were willing to go to such remote areas and teach. So, even those who had finished their schooling, were posted as teachers at MGLC schools. However, with the RTE coming into effect, those of us who didn't do TTC were told that we could instead get postings in other departments for permanent jobs. We were quite willing to do other jobs. But this too did not happen,” Ushakumari says.

“On Wednesday, some of us, teaching at single-teacher schools in various districts, went to the Secretariat to find a solution. We had to go from one office to another all day and it felt horrible having to beg for the money that you worked for so hard for. We were told that something would be done soon,” says Ushakumari, who did not seem to believe that promise.

An official source at the state Education Department claimed that it was not so easy to meet their demands since the MGLC had been a project of the central government. “We have moved the file to pay the dues from the education department. They should get the pending salaries within a week’s time. However, making the teachers permanent is a larger policy issue since it has been a central government scheme,” the source says.

But that’s what teachers like Ushakumari are worried about more than pending salaries. “There are teachers among us who have worked for 20 to 25 years and they are still not made permanent. After spending so much of your time and efforts in getting to these remote schools and sacrificing your time with family, you wouldn’t have anything in your old age. That’s really worrisome. And we also have loans to pay,” Usha says.

There are about 340 such teachers across the state, working at single-teacher or two-teacher schools. “Even the money for children’s mid-day meals has been delayed. We have got the rice. Apart from that, there is a budget of Rs 8 per child per day. Often, this will not be enough when you buy milk and ingredients for the curries and eggs and so on. We shell it out from our purses. The only good thing in all this is that the salaries of the cooks have not been delayed,” Usha says.

On December 5 last year, some of the teachers in single-teacher schools protested in front of the Secretariat raising the same demands. It is when yet another promise failed that Ushakumari wrote the desperate post. She was given courage by friends and well-wishers calling her and offering support. Even her family – her children – had at times been sore at her for not spending enough time with them, when she spent so much time for her work.

Ushakumari sits on strike at her school, as forest dwellers give her company

She says she will go on with her fast till a written order, meeting her demands, and those of other teachers like her, is given out.