CHENNAI: Every morning, Vijaya* (name changed) walks into a Chennai corporation school with the qualifications to teach but holding the job of a sanitation worker. A B.Ed graduate, who has cleared the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) Paper-II, she begins her work dusting off the school’s corridors instead of the blackboards. At times when a teacher takes a leave of absence, she gets to do the job she had trained for, without the pay, designation, or recognition of a teacher.
Vijaya is one of around 1,700 sanitation workers employed in the corporation’s 420 schools — primary, middle, high and higher secondary — spread across the city and its extended limits, and her situation is not unique. Many sanitation workers employed on a contractual basis through the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) and Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in corporation schools are graduates, several of them first-generation learners. After years of toil for a college degree, they now work six days a week for around Rs 19,000 a month, without access to government social security benefits or health insurance.
Sweepers said they routinely perform duties outside their job description, including distributing textbooks, loading and unloading heavy school equipment, serving mid-day meals, and washing utensils. Some said they were even asked to take classes in the teachers’ absence.
Kanchana*, a BCom graduate who earlier worked as an administrative staff member at a private firm, is now employed as a sanitation worker at a Chennai Corporation primary school. She clocks in at 8 am, marks wher attendance on the GCC application, sweeps the school premises, and signs off at 5 pm. However, during a visit to the school, TNIE found her teaching Tamil to Class 2 students in the absence of their regular teacher.
Kanchana said subject teachers sometimes call her to explain what lessons to cover, adding that the school’s headmaster is aware of the arrangement but does not intervene. “I take classes for the lower grades because our school does not have permanent staff members, and an SMC (School Management Committee) teacher is yet to be appointed.”
‘Provide jobs that match a graduate’s qualifications’
“I do this after sweeping the classrooms and whenever I get free time. If I were given an office assistant’s job in the same school, I would be happy to do it,” Kanchana said. The headmaster, however, denied any staff shortage, claiming that everyone performs only the duties assigned to them.
While neither the Greater Chennai Corporation nor the workers’ associations had an estimate of how many sanitation workers are graduates, TNIE spoke to four such workers over the past week -- two with B.Sc Computer Science degrees, one with a B.Ed degree, and another with a B.A in Economics.
Most had previously worked as office assistants or in food outlets before taking up sanitation work after a family member retired from the same post, allowing them to be considered for the job. “I’m doing this because of my family situation. I tell my two kids to study well and get a good job, unlike me,” Vijaya said. Another worker said she chose the job because its fixed working hours allowed her to spend more time with her children.
One sanitation worker TNIE spoke to said that she had allegedly paid her ward councillor an undisclosed sum to secure the job, while another claimed that she was threatened by both school HM and the councillor for not paying the bribe.
CITU Chennai district general secretary R Loganathan, who works closely with sanitation workers in corporation schools, said the scale of the issue was much more than what meets the eye. “Across Chennai, there are likely hundreds of graduates working as sanitation workers. Many choose not to reveal their qualifications out of fear of being judged.
We do not have consolidated data on the exact number of graduates working in the sanitation sector,” he said. Drawing a parallel with sanitation workers engaged in street cleaning, Loganathan added, “I also work with sanitation workers who clean the city’s streets, and some of them hold M.Com degrees. The goal should be to provide jobs that match a candidate’s qualifications.”
GCC Joint Commissioner for Education Karpagam IAS said she was unaware of degree-holding sanitation workers stepping in for teachers. “Our officers regularly go for school inspections; if the HMs and teachers are utilising the sanitation workers for teaching, we would definitely take action,” she said, adding that qualified candidates could be absorbed as office staff members by HMs through the School Management Committee (SMC).
CPM general secretary P Shanmugam told TNIE that the vicious cycle of the same community returning to the same jobs, irrespective of their educational background, could be broken only when the government recruits people based on their educational qualifications and eligibility. He said, “Even jobs provided on compassionate grounds are often allotted based on available vacancies rather than qualifications,” adding that unemployment has forced many to take up jobs unrelated to their qualifications. He also urged the government to create job opportunities that match the education and skills of the people.
(*Names of the workers were changed to protect their identity)