By Manjima Dhakal
Kathmandu, Nov 1:  As COVID-19 pandemic hits every sector, private schools, which are among the worst-hit, are facing existential crisis.
Private schools are mired in serious problems as their only source of income -- fees collected from students -- have become scarce or irregular due to the disturbance in academic activities for more than eight months now. Because of this, teachers and other staffers employed there are forced to change their occupation. Unable to get remuneration for long, some are even struggling to make their ends meet.
A few private schools are now back in operation after merging two or more schools to reduce their operation cost, while others operating at low cost, especially those that have to pay rent, have shut their doors down.
A survey conducted by Institutional School Teachers’ Union (ISTU) fifteen day ago, a week prior to the start of Dashain festival, found that only four per cent schools paid full salary while 28 per cent didn’t give any payment to their employees.
The study conducted on more than 500 private schools across the country found that 28 per cent schools paid 50 per cent salary to their teachers, 7 per cent paid 40 per cent salary, 11 per cent paid 30 per cent salary, and 12 per cent paid 25 per cent salary.
Devi Datta Poudel, Vice-chairperson of the ISTU, said those 28 per cent schools that paid no remuneration are on the verge of closing permanently as they haven’t reopened yet. To make matters even worse, they haven’t contacted any of their students as of now.
The survey conducted in August and September by the ISTU is even grimmer. In that period, 98 per cent schools didn’t pay any money to its employees.
Things have improved slightly of late, but it is only because of Dashain and Tihar festivals, Poudel said. That is why, teachers have begun feeling unsafe in their profession.
In its record, ISTU mentions that in Lalitpur district alone, over 700 teachers are still unpaid while more than 100 are sacked from their jobs. What’s more, many teachers are put on hold on condition that they will be contacted if and when the schools reopen. Unable to solve their hand to mouth problem, such teachers are leaving Kathmandu in droves.
Tila Ghimire, a teacher at a private school in Kathmandu, shared her plan of opening a shop now because her school has cut her salary by a whopping 50 percent.
Ghimire said, “We know all private schools are facing troubles at this time, and teachers are among the most affected.”
Bhola Chalise, General Secretary at ISTU, blamed that many schools are spending collected fees for other operational costs like paying installments of vehicles and to pay rents, but are not paying the teachers.
Tika Puri, Chairperson of the Private and Boarding Schools’ Organisation Nepal (PABSON), also acknowledged that some schools were cheating teachers by not paying salary to them. Therefore, the PABSON has appealed to its member schools to share a portion of their incomes with their teachers and staffers if they are to survive in the long-run.
Puri said that guardians were not paying fees as they hadn’t been able to send their children to the schools, which is why PABSON and NPABSON have reached an agreement with Mega Bank and Prime Bank for loan of up to Rs. 1 million even if schools didn’t have any property for collateral. “In line with the agreement, those banks will help schools pay their staffs’ remuneration,” Puri said.
Educationist Prof. Dr. Balchandra Luitel takes this crisis as presumed condition because both private schools and the government hadn’t prepared for the emergency.
He stated that the problem wouldn’t have arisen if the government had provisioned fund for emergency.
Likewise, the problem became dire because most private school owners used earlier profits for personal income rather than investing them for probable hard times like this.
Luitel said that it was the apt time to right the wrongs in private schools by converting them to public ones, and that it was urgent to establish a system by which all schools operate in the future.