Edu dept scraps plan to rejig teachers’ pay

MUMBAI: The state education department has decided to revoke its decision to explore the possibility of linking teachers’ salary grants to the student enrolments in schools In a circular issued on December 19, the education department scrapped the committee which was formed to look into the issue

Earlier this month, the department had set up 33 different committees to study some important issues in school education Some of the key areas in which these committees will work include – ensuring the proper implementation of the RTE Act; ensuring there are no loopholes in the firstyear junior college admissions; and devising a system to hear complaints related to school fee hikes among others One of these committees was formed to check the feasibility of fixing the amount of salaried grant of teachers on the basis of the number of students in each school

Experts, however, had questioned the setting up of these committees Many had also written to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on the issue

A circular issued on December 19 announced that all of these committees had been scrapped

While officials from the education department did not respond to calls and messages, schools welcomed the move

“Nothing would have come out of the idea The government should stop blaming teachers for all its failures and should instead work on bettering itself and fixing its own issues,” said the principal of a suburban school