Thane: Badlapur school asks teachers to return half their salary in cheque

Poddar Brio International School opened in Badlapur in June 2015 PicDatta KumbharHeres a sad reality check for school teachers Not only is their job considered a thankless one but they also earn peanuts And whenever possible they will be cheated out of that too A certain Badlapur school has now started making its teachers sign blank cheques and return almost half their salary to the school alleges a complaint letter sent to the CBSE boardAlso Read School begs students for teachers salaryOne of the blank cheques signed over by the teachersPoddar Brio International School opened in Badlapur in June 2015 but is yet to be certified by the CBSE board As a result the school can only hold classes up to Std VIII since students cannot sit for the Std X or XII board exams without CBSE affiliationTeachers were recently told that the longawaited certification process was finally underway and the school would first be inspected to see if it met all the guidelines Among these guidelines is the qualification of the teachers and their pay gradeDouble standardsNow itrsquos no secret that teachers are among the lowest paid professionals anywhere but the school management was keen to impress the Board so they decided to hike the salaries to match the guidelines But the teachers soon learnt that this hike was only on paper and they would have to return all the extra money Frustrated by the double standards teachers have sent a complaint letter to the CBSE head office to intimate them about the issue before the inspectionldquoIn a full staff meeting conducted by the chairman of the school we were told that in the month of November an inspection team from CBSE would be coming to our school for affiliation To show the CBSE board they will pay us as per the government rules for two months mdash September and October But the extra amount has to be returned to the school in the form of an advanced chequerdquo said the teachers in a complaint letter to the CBSE boardRead Story Show us the money School teachersThe letter added ldquoFor example if my salary is Rs 18400 but as per regulations my salary should be Rs 28100 I was paid that much and then extra amount was returned to them through an advance chequerdquoThis farce started in the SeptemberOctober salary cycle and was repeated the next month as well The amount that teachers had to return varied greatly depending on how much gap there was between their original salary and the CBSE standard Some had to return about 10 while others had to return well over half the money Of course this also means that they are being paid less than half of what they should make ideallyReality chequeOne of the teachers from the school said ldquoThe salary chaos has baffled all of us but very few speak about it fearing the consequences We were asked to give the administration a signed blank cheque before the salary was credited to our account Whatever amount was over and above our normal pay we had to return it allrdquoldquoThe school has been really clever in executing their plan We just hope that the CBSE takes cognisance of the complaint Since an inspection was expected even the class teachers were reshuffled abruptly perhaps because of the guidelines on educational qualifications All these irregularities should stoprdquolsquoCanrsquot explain it awayrsquoldquoOf course the school will deny it But how will they explain everything that has happened mdash from the meeting with the chairman to all the teachers signing cheques in front of the admin staff it has all been captured on CCTV camerardquo said one teacherldquoDue to the demonetisation drive all withdrawals had to be made in person at the bank All teachers were taken to the bank in Badlapur where our salary accounts are held Why should we all go there and make selfwithdrawals at the same timerdquo questioned another teacher