Contemplating Teacher Welfare Fund
To render an organization productive and proficient, the welfare of its employees is paramount. In Jammu and Kashmir, Police Department and School Education Department accommodate the bulk of employees. The J&K Police has established holistic Welfare interventions to look after its extended family and has been instrumental in infusing a degree of stability in mitigating challenges in times of eventuality, involving financial implications. Their welfare model has been successful in promoting initiatives revolving around rehabilitation of widows, differently–abled children, academic and vocational training capsules, impart high-standard quality education to the wards of serving, retired and deceased police personnel. These interventions have rendered the Police department as pro-employee and the call for its replication in other departments is echoing louder.
There is dire need of establishment of teacher contributory welfare fund by the department of School Education to ensure a dignified life of its employees. Recently the author has gone through a proposed draft of Teacher Contributory Welfare Fund doing rounds on social media, observing people from all shades of life vociferously advocating for the creation of the same. The author pondered over the issue and thought of writing on this critical issue as it is related with the dignity of people who nurture all other professions.
The thought that crept in mind is why there is need for teacher contributory welfare fund? After all the educators, be it a teacher or a lecturer or a principal, they are paid handsome monthly salaries. So why there is need to establish such a fund at the first instance? The dignity of the teacher is paramount as he is the role model for his disciples and it is mortally humiliating when he seeks alms through crowd funding mostly through social networking sites in case of life threatening eventualities .We are witness to innumerable incidents when financial help was sought on behalf of an ailing teacher as the cost of treatment ran even up to a crore. How can a teacher manage such a huge cost to cater the medical expenses. Even teachers sold their immovable properties to meet the medical costs. Unfortunately people of Kashmir are not prioritizing their health insurances. When a life threatening disease makes a sudden appearance, everything turns upside down.
The novelty of this welfare initiative lies in its nature of contribution. The contributions will purely be done by the employees themselves on a monthly basis and the corpus amount will be deposited in a common account created at the apex level after following due formalities. The uniqueness of this welfare fund lies in its no impact on state exchequer as the proposed draft has suggested that the contributions will be purely done by the employees themselves. The best thing about this idea is in creating a welfare fund for private school educators as well who unfortunately are susceptible and vulnerable to financial instabilities.
Therefore it can be a ray of hope for them and their families to provide a soothing touch in times of life threatening eventualities. This truly can be a game changing intervention if executed professionally. Besides making contributing for their own welfare, the educators can do some contributions in the name of Student Welfare Fund on monthly basis to safeguard the health and finances of student community also. It can be a win-win situation for all the relevant stakeholders to uphold their honour and dignity. To see Teacher Contributory Welfare fund materialize every stakeholder has to extend a helping hand. The onus lies on the shoulders of different organizations of education department to reach to a broader consensus on the proposed draft, weeding out differences.
Dr. Mushtaq Rather, Educator hailing from Mattan, Anantnag