Teacher power

Various studies have made it pretty clear by now that teaching in government schools is generally not as good as it is in private schools. And, while the results in private schools are better, the teachers there get paid much less than their government counterparts, sometimes even less than half. So why doesn't the government just close down its schools and hand them over to private educationists? That way, you get better results and you even spend a lot less. While most suspect this is because teachers are unionised, Geeta Gandhi Kingdon of the University of Oxford has an even more amazing story to tell, that of the huge political power such teachers wield in states like Uttar Pradesh. Presenting her findings at a seminar organised by ICRIER, Kingdon found that, since the early 1950s, teachers have comprised around 12-13 per cent of members of the UP Legislative Council, the figure's been around 6-7 per cent for the Legislative Assembly, and about 10-12 per cent in the case of the state's Cabinet.