On the one hand, the School and Mass Education Minister has been saying that the Government cannot fulfil the demand for Grant-In-Aid (GIA) of the agitating Block Grant teachers, and on the other, he is appealing to them to go back to their schools and resume work.
Added to this, he has been referring to a ministerial panel which the Government has formed recently to look into the Block Grant issue.
It is, therefore, not difficult even to a person with least reasoning capacity to understand the Government design. All it wants is to keep continuing the status quo and ignore the teachers’ claim for GIA as before.
Schools and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra even was found sermonizing on teacher’s duty and morality from his AC-fitted chamber even as the teachers were squatting under the sun on the MG Road wearing black badge on the Guru Divas. A few students and guardians of the locked-up schools had run all the way to Bhubaneswar from nondescript villages to worship their teachers on the Teacher’s Day on the capital’s street.
On the flip side, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who has not minced a single word for the striking teachers as yet, spoke about quality education and opening of model schools on line of Kendriya Vidyalayas in each block at a State-sponsored meeting on Guru Divas in the city.
Rubbing salt into the wounds of the teachers, BJD spokesperson Samir Dash gloated that it was his party which gave an identity to the teachers by paying them Block Grant. He sought to mean that the previous Governments had ignored these teachers completely and the BJD Government has a sort of rehabilitated the teachers by paying them grant no matter if it was minuscule.
Except sticking to their guns and justifying that it was no wrong paying Block Grant, the BJD leaders have never cared to meet the teachers who have been in an agitation on the MG Road since the beginning of the Monsoon Session of the Assembly in August last. They look totally impervious to what could be the troubles of the millions of innocent students whose studies have been halted, let alone the plight of the teachers who have been finding it hard to live normally without due remuneration for long years.
The arrogance of the BJD Government looks astounding! Though the Government has been often vouching for the cause of the poor and has rolled out myriad schemes for the benefit of a large section of people on the base rung of the society with a view to catch vote, it does not seem to be serious about their educational growth. Had not it been so, it would have taken steps to sort out the Block Grant problem long before. For, the Block Grant is not a new issue and the Government instead of taking a permanent solution, has played tricks with the teachers and even bluffed many a time of doing this or that while nothing materializes in the end.
If the schools where the affluent and conscious citizens read were closed for a day, the Government would lose sleep and take swift action. But the schools where the wards of the illiterate mass under BPl are reading can go for shutdown without the Government virtually facing any jerks from anywhere. Besides, the Government is little concerned if the students of these schools get normal education and improve the socio-economic standard of their families. The Government either does not want the millions of poor people to grow or is scared about their growth, apprehensive of the fact that the more people cross the vicious cycle of poverty, illiteracy and ignorance, the greater would be the loss to its vote bank. Once educated and aware of the world around, they would be able to read between the lines and not swayed away by false promises or dole ploy.