Outsourcing classes: A unique concept developed by college teachers of Bihar

Patna,(BiharTimes): Want to know why the quality of higher education in Bihar––not to speak of just primary and secondary education––has further gone down in the last few years.

Hold your breath and read. College teachers are outsourcing their classes to someone else.

Thus a new breed of absentee landlords have emerged. Many of the teachers posted in far flung district towns or villages ‘hire’ some educated youths to engage their classes.

According to a Times of India report this practice of subletting teaching jobs has been going on in many colleges of Magadh, Veer Kuer Singh, BRA Bihar, and L N Mithila universities for several years. Just do not talk of the tall claims of the state government on this front.

As teachers posted in suburban or far off colleges do not want to stay and work there, they look for some local educated unemployed youths to engage the classes allotted to them and remain at Patna or other cities. They spend a part of their salary to pay an honorarium to these ‘hired’ teachers and the college authorities.

In some colleges, teachers need not hire outsiders for the purpose. They simply pay anything from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 per month to their principals and get their salaries credited to their bank accounts regularly. Thus they happily reside along with their families in Patna and are engaged in some business. Some of them are even running coaching institutes in the state capital or some other cities.

A college teacher posted at Bikramganj in Rohtas district said that he lives in Patna as he did not find good schools at Bikramganj to educate his children. He just pay Rs 10,000 per month to the college principal for liberating him from the hassles of engaging classes.

There are also instances of teachers of the same department have made arrangements for engaging classes among themselves. If there are three teachers teaching Physics in a college, each teacher would visit the college for just two days a week and engage all the classes of different batches. In some colleges of Patna, some senior teachers also ask their research scholars to engage their classes.

As there is no fear of inspection this practice is going on unchecked.