In September 2021, K V Mohandas, chairman of the Eleventh Kerala Pay Revision Commission (PRC), took official note of the practice of collecting money from teachers for appointment in state-aided schools and colleges by comparing it to dowry. “Like dowry, demanding money for appointments in aided schools and colleges is considered evil by everyone and still the practice is allowed to continue,” he said. While the PRC Report recommended some measures to end this evil, given that teachers’ salaries in aided institutions were paid by the government from the public exchequer, there was also an undercurrent of hopelessness about the situation, even sympathy for managements that needed funds for infrastructure and maintenance. Nevertheless, the practice was corrupt and illegal, and it was suggested that handing over recruitment to the Public Service Commission (PSC) or constituting a statutory Kerala Recruitment Board for Private Schools and Colleges might help to end it.
Soon after the publication of the Kerala PRC report, I attended a meeting with members of the Commission for Reforms in the Higher Education System of Kerala, who were looking for pointers from our own experience in West Bengal with special reference to the research and teaching excellence of Jadavpur University, where I taught for most of my working life. When the discussion touched upon payment for teaching posts in higher education in West Bengal, I said that while influence and politics obviously…
