West Bengal: 1,200 Teachers of Vocational Education Go Without Salaries for 4 Months

A total of 1,200 teachers of vocational education working in government schools across West Bengal have not received their salaries since December, 2019. While the permanent teachers in government schools have been receiving their salaries, the vocational education teachers, who were appointed on contractual basis, are struggling to feed their families during the ongoing lockdown.

Talking to NewsClick, Kamal*, a vocational education teacher said, “Our families are starving to death. We are running out of rations at home. I have two young children, and I will not be able to put any food on their plate unless I receive my wages. We beg the state government to pay us our pending salaries so that we can survive this lockdown.”

These teachers were appointed under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme on Vocationalisation of secondary and higher secondary education (CSS- VSHSE) under National Vocational Educational Qualification Framework (NVEQF), which was launched with an aim to promote a national level competency based skill framework and is integrated with the mainstream education system. The Directorate of Vocational Education & Training which functions under West Bengal government’s Department of Technical Education, Training, and Skill Development appointed these teachers on contractual basis through various agencies.

According to the website of the Department of Technical Education, Training, and Skill Development, West Bengal, at present, students are pursuing Vocational Education under CSS-VHSE scheme from Class-IX (Level-1) to Class-XII (Level-4) in 600 Schools across the state, in association with SSA(Samagra Shikhsha Abhiyan) under School Education Department, Government of West Bengal.

The teachers, who are also referred to as training providers, also help with the administrative work in the schools where they teach. Another teacher, Rizwan*, told NewsClick, “A lot of us are not provided proper contracts by the agencies. The amount for Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) gets deducted from our salaries, but we do not know if it gets deposited. Everytime we try to raise questions, we are threatened that we will lose our jobs.”

The West Bengal Finance Department on April 2 issued a notification, which clearly mentioned that people employed under centrally sponsored schemes will receive their complete salaries during the months of lockdown. However, most of the private agencies have not complied with this order yet. The contractual teachers have not only not received their wages for the months of lockdown, they have not been paid anything after the month of November.

Rizwan said, “We, like all other workers, only want our salaries to be paid so that we can survive during this difficult period. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced on television that no one will be deprived of their wages. Then why is the government failing to notice that we are being deprived of our livelihoods?”

He further added, “We work as much as the regular teachers do. However, while they continue to receive their salaries every month, like they should, why are we not being paid?”

(*names have been changed)