The govt. is finding new ways to save money. One way is to privatise the service sector. Education, one of the most basic services that any citizen should be entitled to, is being privatised. When NGOs are given contracts for services, it does not exactly look like privatisation, right?
AP Open School Society has provided about 30 open school centres during 2002-2004 through the management of an NGO based in the old city of Hyderabad. The teachers, all poor Muslim women, were supposed to train and send students to take open school exams. They are paid on a per-candidate-this-much basis. The academic year lasts for 3 trimesters or nine months. In the first year, that is, 2002-2003, they are paid only for the first trimester. In the second year, that is, 2003-2004, they are not paid for the entire year. After an endless series of representations, it is only in the first week of February 2006 they were paid for two trimesters. Three trimesters' pay is still due. One of the teachers threatened the NGO that she would commit suicide if she was not paid her due.
When the coordinator of AP Open School Society was approached by a newspaper reporter, he pleaded not to publish this story. Why is he so afraid?
All of us in the development sector will benefit from a crash course on how to get things done from the government. Is there anybody who would offer such course?
1 comment:
Before the per-candidate-this-much sentence, I thought you were talking about American school teachers. India seems to have swallowed the neo-liberal economics pill for good, hasn't it...
You don't need a course on how to get things done in the government, you know the answer is some sort of a bribe, now who to bribe might be worth looking into.
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