Adarsh school staff not government employees, says Punjab education department

The Adarsh schools were opened to benefit poor rural students with free quality education. (Representational image)

The Director General School Education (DGSE) has categorically stated that the employees, teaching non-teaching, of 26 Adarsh schools set up under PPP model cannot be treated as employees either of the Punjab Education Development Board (PEDB) or the state education department. The staff, however, contests this claim by the Punjab government, saying that when it shares 70 per cent expenditure liabilities of running these school then how can the staff not be treated as education department employees.

The Adarsh schools were opened to benefit poor rural students with free quality education. The monthly operational cost is shared by the government and the private player in the ratio of 70:30, respectively. The staff was appointed by the private companies only, and currently there are some 3000 people employed with these schools.

In a communication on December 28 to the private partners, which include Bharti Foundatiion, Educomp Solutions, Baba Isher Singh Education Society, Balraj Education Trust, Chief Khalsa Diwan Charitable Society, Shaheed Udham Singh Education and Welfare Society, Sukh Sagar Welfare Association, Gram Vikas Education Society and SDMs of Bathinda and Zira, the DGSE-cum-Member Secretary, PEDB, Prashant Goyal says that the PEDB has been running as many as 26 Adarsh Schools under PPP model in the state. It adds: “There was no contract between the employees of these schools and PEDB directly or indirectly. Hence, the staff of these schools cannot be treated as employees of PEDB or government of Punjab.” The communication also asked private companies as well as local civic administration to deal the complaints regarding the staff’s service conditions at their own end.

Shamsher Singh, a teacher and the leader of the Adarsh School Teachers’ Union Punjab, while speaking to The Indian Express said that by issuing such statements government was ditching them by making different rules for them every now and then. “When we got the appointment letters years back and we were given the letters as the employees of government Adarsh schools, but now the education department does not treat us as education department employees,” he said, adding that government is issuing all such communication just because there are huge disparities of salaries among the teachers of same grade of these school and when we demand parity in salaries they do not take up our complaints.

“There are nearly 3000 staff in these school, but our teachers are not having even Rs 10,000 average salary and that too is pending since April 2017,” said a teacher of Nawangram Adarsh School in Nawanshahr district which is being run by Gram Vikas Education Society from December this year.

“When government is sharing the 70 per cent expenditure liabilities of these schools then why is it not keeping the tab on the total funds released and the expenditure done by schools,” said another teacher, adding that all these private companies have been earning lakh of rupees by not utilising the government grants in the required manner, but government is hardly checking them. “We are just demanding to check the irregular practices of majority of these companies and everything will be streamlined,” said another teacher.

According to the policy, Rs 2197 expenditure is fixed per students per month and 70 per cent (Rs 1537) of this is released by the government while 30 per cent Rs 660 is contributed by the private companies running these schools.

“But this amount is hardly spent on the students per month and these private companies are saving huge amount,” said a teacher of Adarsh school, adding that even this year several Adarsh schools could not get the books, school uniforms and staff is running these on the contributions of some NGOs in their respective area.

The Adarsh school scheme was an ambitious project of the previous SAD-BJP government which wanted to open one such school in every block of the state which has total 148 blocks. But only 26 such schools could be opened by the SAD-BJP despite the land for the schools being provided to the private company by the government itself. Earlier, 19 such schools were found indulging in various irregularities by fudging the students’ enrolment to get more grant from government but Punjab government.

Prashant Goyal, Director General of School Education (DGSE), could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.