Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh: This city of about half a million, 272 km east of state capital Lucknow—and a parliamentary constituency where the chief minister Yogi Adityanath won five Lok Sabha elections—welcomes its visitors with posters of the chief minister and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Vikram Singh, a school anudeshak, or instructor—officialese for a teacher on temporary contract—for the past 11 years, used to attend all of Adityanath’s political rallies. 

Now, he leads protests against the government. 

There are 628,915 teachers, including part-time instructors, shiksha mitras (education friends) and assistant teachers, who run government school classes up to standard eight. 

Of these, 24,781 or 4% are part-time instructors on Rs 7,000-per-month temporary contracts, renewed annually, down from over 41,000 in 2013. The Uttar Pradesh (UP) government employs 142,000 shiksha mitras, also on yearly contracts.

The others have permanent jobs.

“Even when the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) was not winning anywhere else in the country, it was winning here,” said Singh. “But it seems like they have forgotten their own people." 

Singh said he gave up entirely on the BJP when it failed its promise to school teachers on annual contracts to increase salaries and make their positions permanent in 2017 and 2022, according to Singh. 

These promises were reiterated on 8 October 2024, in a meeting between government authorities and teacher representatives, where, according to Singh, they were given a verbal assurance to fulfil their demands after the November 2024 state bypolls. 

Although the contract teachers were given such assurances in the past as well, they decided to halt their ongoing protests. 

The Struggle To Provide Education

In 2013, UP’s department of basic education appointed 41,307 teachers of three types—for physical education, art, and four subjects, including farming, computer science, environmental studies and home science. 

These teachers were placed in 13,769 UP schools that had more than 100 children. 

The state government announced in February 2024 that there were 85,152 vacancies for headmasters and assistant teachers in the state but insisted that, with the inclusion of shiksha mitras and instructors, the student-teacher ratio was satisfactory and there was no shortage of teachers.

But a June 2024 report based on data from the UP basic education department found that 5,151 of 132,842 government primary, upper primary and composite schools were managed by a single teacher.

As per the National Statistical Office’s survey of 2023, the latest available, UP’s literacy rate is the fifth lowest in the country, only above Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, and Rajasthan. 

The literacy rate for male students is 81.8%, while only 63.4% of female students are considered literate. In rural UP, the literacy rate for female students is around 60%.

The state-run Nipun assessment tests, conducted to check learning outcomes, found less than 50% of students from classes one to three in state-run schools in UP had achieved foundational literacy—the ability to read and comprehend sentences and answer questions based on them, write, and do addition and subtraction of three digit numbers—on November 2023. 

UP ranked 19 of 28 for ‘quality education’ in NITI Aayog’s 23-24 SDG report, 29 of 36 states and UTs in the ministry of education’s Performance Grading Index on School Education, published in 2023, and 17 of 20 ‘large states’ in NITI Aayog’s School Education Quality Index in 2019, the only time it was published.

No Changes Despite Court Rulings

In the 11 years since they were appointed, the contract-based teachers have written multiple letters to the government, protested in the state’s capital Lucknow, and individual teachers have even fought two cases, based on six petitions, in the Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court, demanding that the state government honour their previous decision to pay them Rs 17,000 per month.

In both the cases, originally filed in 2018, the courts ruled against the UP government in 2019 and 2022. However, no action was taken despite the repeated orders.

“Ever since we were appointed, our fight has seen no end,” said Vikram Singh. “One election after another, we kept begging the government to listen to us but they paid no heed.”

The government school, in Gorakhpur, where Singh teaches, is a single storey building with eight rooms for 536 students from class one to eight. 

Singh has been teaching here for the past 11 years. 

In addition to physical education classes, he teaches all the other subjects after school free of cost. 

“My fellow instructors and I teach these children free of cost after school the whole year to ensure that they do not drop out of school,” said Singh.

Along with teaching multiple subjects, he has been leading the protests for increased salaries and permanent positions for the teachers on contracts.

Singh is one of 41,307 full-time contract-based teachers appointed in 2013 by the Samajwadi Party led UP government to teach classes one to eight, under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), a flagship programme of the government of India to attain universal elementary education

On 2 June 2017, in response to the teacher’s demands, UP’s secretary of basic education, passed an order to increase the honorarium to Rs 17,000. This was accepted by the additional chief secretary of basic education. 

However, Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party was replaced by the BJP in the 2017 assembly elections and the issue of teachers’ salary was forgotten despite the previous approval of the UP government’s Shiksha Pariyojna Parishad (Education Project Council). 

On 2 January 2018, the state project director of the SSA reviewed the earlier order passed by the additional secretary of basic education and reduced the proposed salary to Rs 9,800. 

The state told the Allahabad High Court that the reason for the reduction in pay was a lack of funds from the central government. However, the 2013 proposal to hire the teachers on contracts says that any shortfall of resources from the Centre were to be fulfilled by the state government. 

On 19 May 2017, the official handle of Bharatiya Janata Party(UP) tweeted saying that “Acche Din”, or good days, for the instructors were here and their honorariums were to be increased finally. 

“This was just a tweet for the common public, we did not get anything,” said Singh. 

This led to the contracted teachers approaching the court.

After a two-year legal battle, on 3 July 2019, a Lucknow High Court bench ruled in favour of the teachers on contract, ordering the government to pay them arrears, as promised in 2017, until 2019, including an annual interest of 9%. 

The court, in its judgement, a copy of which has been accessed by Article 14, noting that the teachers had not been paid even the reduced salary said that it considered the “inaction on the part of the opposite parties as harassment of the petitioners”.

On 20 August 2019, the Allahabad High Court also ruled in their favour. 

When the government still did not adhere to the judgements, the contracted teachers filed a contempt of court petition.

“As soon as we filed a contempt case, the government decided to proceed to a double bench but they failed to get a stay there as well,” said Singh.

Following this, on 2 December 2022, the double bench gave its judgement in the favour of teachers and asked the government to pay the arrears, this time however, for only a year from May 2017 to May 2018. 

The state government then approached the Supreme Court. The apex court declined the petition filed by the state government and asked them to clear the arrears first. 

According to these judgements, the state government owes each contract based teacher around Rs 800,000. 

Article 14 tried reaching out to the director general of school education, UP, thrice, by phone, on 11 and 12 November, and by email on 30 December. 

There was no response. 

We will update this story if they do respond.

Compelled To Work Multiple Jobs

Between 2013 and 2024, the number of instructors decreased from over 41,000 to nearly 25,000, according to data from UP’s basic education department, accessed by Article 14. 

In June 2019, 32,500 contract-based teachers of government upper primary schools across UP threatened to tender their resignation as they had not been paid for six months.

The ones who remain were forced to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. 

Jitendra Kumar is an art teacher at the Composite Vidyalaya Balapath school in Gorakhpur, about 320 km from the state capital. The 40-year-old blames his financial condition and the stress that comes with it for his hair loss.

His daily routine starts at the school at 9 am. Other than teaching art, for which he is paid Rs 8,470 per month, he teaches other subjects, such as maths and English. 

The school closes at 3 pm but Kumar’s work day does not end. 

At 4 pm Kumar reports for his second job at a small toy and cosmetics shop where he earns up to Rs 8,000 as a part-time salesman. He works there till 11 at night. 

“My kids often ask me to get something for them and every time they do, my eyes go straight down in embarrassment. I am doing all that I can to support my family but it is still not enough,” said Kumar. “My condition is such that I am not even able to provide the basic essentials to my family.”

Although their duties are the same as teachers with permanent jobs in the same school, the teachers on contracts are paid less. 

“The permanent teachers are paid far more than us,” said Prajapati, another contract-based teacher, who goes by a single name. 

The starting salary for primary school teachers in UP is Rs 40,240. They also receive benefits such as paid leave, maternity leave, and yearly raises, based on seniority, which contract-based teachers do not get.

“Is the price of dal and rice different for them as compared to us?” said Prajapati. “Do my children not deserve to be fed and educated well?” 

“I am doing the same job as them (permanent teachers) and am suffering the same rate of inflation as they are,” said Prajapati. 

His case is not unique. 

On the same narrow lane where Kumar works in a shop, Tinku Jaiswal, another contract-based school teacher, works in a small godown, ensuring that rations and other food are delivered to retail shops.

The 33-year-old’s primary job is to teach physical education in a school in Gorakhpur. He reaches school at 8 am every day. After leading the morning prayers in the assembly he teaches physical education, agriculture and science. 

He said that in addition to their financial struggles, the salary disparities have resulted in the permanent teachers often harassing those on contracts. 

“Several times in my school, the headmaster has insulted me in front of the kids,” said Jaiswal. “More than once, in order to show the difference, the permanent teachers have openly announced our salaries to the children, identifying us as someone who comes from a lower class.” 

(Hrishi Raj Anand is an independent multimedia journalist based in Delhi)

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