Delhi: Teacher Selected for National Award Awaits Last 2 Months’ Salaries

A primary teacher at a North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) run schools, who is to be accorded with the annual national teachers’ award later this year, is among the 9,000 other teachers associated with the civic body whose salaries are pending for months.

Hailing from Haryana’s Sonipat, Surendra Singh, who has been picked for the Union Ministry of Education’s prestigious award along with 46 other teachers from across the country, said that he hasn’t received his salaries for the month of June and July yet; while that of May was only received in August.

“The salaries for the months of June and July are still pending,” said the 47-year old teacher, adding that the salary crisis is “certainly affecting the teachers [employed by the municipal corporation] adversely”.

He added that the reason behind this is because the civic body is “facing a financial crunch” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. He pitched for the Delhi government and the municipal corporation to come together in resolving the issue at the earliest.

All the three civic bodies in the national capital – North MCD, South MCD, and East MCD – are currently controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Among them, the North MCD is currently under intense criticism for delaying the salaries of its employees – with its total month-wise pending liabilities standing over Rs. 1,000 crore as on June this year – ostensibly due to “financial constraints”.

“Timely salary payments for our labour is not merely a demand, but a right of the employees. It is outrageous to not clear the dues on time,” Singh, the single bread-winner of his family, told NewsClick.

Calls made to Ira Singhal, director of the Press and Information Department, NDMC, went answered.

Travelling from Sonipat – spending nearly 1.5 to 2 hours – daily, Singh has been teaching primary kids in an NDMC-run school in Sarai Pipal Thala, that comes under Civil Lines zone, for the past 21 years.

Among his many achievements, one is an exceptional track record when it comes to the fifth-graders who have, under his guidance, cleared the competitive exams including the entrance to Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalayas – premier schools run by the Directorate of Education, Government of Delhi, for which an entrance exam is the only gateway to get in.

Also read: Delhi: Teachers Awaiting Salaries See No Hope in Sisodia’s ‘Taking Over Schools’ Warning

Other than that, there are merit scholarship exams conducted by the municipal corporation for all students of class 4 and 5, under which 2,500 students from the 714 NDMC-run schools are selected for a scholarship worth Rs. 1,000. “In last ten years, as many as 323 of my students have cleared the merit scholarship exam,” Singh recalled. That’s about 32.3 students per year in a class where teacher-student ration is about 1:35, according to him.

Singh is known among his students for his teaching techniques, directed towards their “holistic development”, he told NewsClick. As a result, currently he is also a mentor teacher with 11 other NDMC-run schools.

Asked about education in current times, when the pandemic outbreak has forced all the schools to shutdown, he pointed towards the challenges of online learning. “Most of the students don’t have smartphones, they use their parents’ phones for study purposes which becomes an issue when the parent is going out for work,” he said.

But these hurdles, he added, are being addressed by preparing worksheets and providing it to the students which they can access according to their time and convenience. Singh is currently looking after preparing study material for the environmental science (EVS) subject.

“Come what may, teachers, if motivated enough, will certainly excel and impart good quality education to their students. And in order to keep them motivated, timely payment of salary is very crucial because even they have their families to take care of,” he added.

He further said that apart from the salary issue, he doesn’t hold any other complaints with the corporation-run schools. “Almost all the facility required for good education has been made available to both the students and teachers,” he said.

Singh hasn’t joined any of the protests that were staged earlier by a section of teachers, who have been constantly raising their demands to clear dues. “I do not think that a teacher should go on ‘strike’ because it will be children who will have to bear the brunt of it. And that is why I haven’t been part of the protests (which included a hunger strike). But I do stand with their demands and hope that the salary dues are cleared,” Singh said.

“I believe that a teacher imparts knowledge to students and that is why the whole community must come together to fight for teachers’ rights,” he added.

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