THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Despite the promises by the UDF government to address their concerns, close to 13,400 school noon meal workers are in crisis with their income getting delayed.
After the UDF government’s first cabinet meeting, Chief Minister V D Satheesan had announced a decision to increase the honorarium of noon meal workers. However, even after the new academic year started, no amount was disbursed leaving them without income for about two months.
Trade union leaders said that even the earlier promise of reducing the student-worker ratio has not been implemented so far. On the other hand, schools are struggling to make both ends meet amid the price hike in commodities.
INTUC’s School Pachaka Thozhilali Congress state general secretary Habeeb Sait said that the government has not even implemented the previous LDF government’s decision to reduce the worker-student ratio from 1:500 to 1:300. “This was agreed upon by former minister V Sivankutty in last August itself, but still remains unfulfilled. We met the General Education Minister N Samsudheen and Labour Minister Bindhu Krishna to raise our concerns, but none of it has made any impact,” he said.
Stating that due to high workload, schools divide the work and payment among multiple workers, School Pachaka Thozhilali Sanghadana (HMS) state president Shakunthala S said that though the chief minister promised them to immediately address the issue earlier this month, nothing has moved forward.
“The government order was to give an amount of `1,000 in addition to the honorarium we are getting based on total working days. Officers from the education department said that they have not received any official communication regarding this,” she said.
Meanwhile, several schools are facing a financial crunch to adjust to the menu against the price hike of commodities including milk, egg and gas cylinders.
“Schools are given `6.38 per student up to Class 4 and `10 for students from Classes 5 to 8 daily, including milk twice and egg once a week. With the prices going high after the West Asian conflict, some school headmasters are now utilising their salaries and taking loans to provide meals for their students. They are also not getting the reimbursement for the money spent for providing meals,” said a school headmaster from Kottayam under the condition of anonymity.
While schools with a higher student count will not face increased difficulty due to bulk purchase, he added that schools with a lesser number of students are finding it difficult to manage the expenses.
Responding to the concerns, Minister N Samsudheen told TNIE that the issue will be studied by the department.
“We have not changed any administrative procedures that were followed by the previous government. The rest of the issue will be examined soon,” the minister said.