HC to AICTE: Can pvt college teachers have min wages?

HC to AICTE: Can pvt college teachers have min wages?

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:20.11.2020

A Trichy-based activist has moved the Madras high court for a direction to Tamil Nadu government to disburse salaries of private school, college teachers from the state treasury.

Petitioner K M Karthik also wanted the court to reduce the fee structures of private schools and colleges as much as possible after a detailed audit by the income tax department.

Admitting the plea, a division bench of Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice R Hemalatha directed the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to file a detailed report on fixing a minimum wage for teachers in private institutions.

According to the petitioner, though the court has permitted the institutions to collect fees from parents of students for the lockdown period, many institutions have failed to pay salaries of their staff including the teaching staff.

Pointing out that private schools are not governed by any legislation that specifies a salary structure for teaching faculty, the petitioner submitted that in some institutions, teachers are paid as low as ₹5,000 a month. Though private colleges are mandated to follow AICTE guidelines, according to which every teaching staff is entitled to a salary of ₹68,000, most of the colleges do not follow the rules as the monitoring mechanism is poor, the petitioner said.

“In these unprecedented times, teachers do not demand pay as shown in records of the colleges. All they ask for is their salary,” he added.

The petitioner also wanted the court to intervene and direct the state to reduce the fee structure of all private schools and colleges in the state after conducting a thorough income tax audit of the educational institutions. Recording the submissions, the bench adjourned the plea to February 5 for further hearing.

The high court was hearing a petition that sought direction to the government to pay salaries of private school, college staff from the state treasury. The petitioner claimed many institutes denied proper salary to staff during the lockdown