Unemployed teachers in Karnataka looking for odd jobs amid COVID – 19 Crisis

During the major financial crisis induced by Coronavirus, jobless teachers from private schools in Karnataka are looking for odd jobs to sustain financially. Addressing a few cases, the economic fall down has pushed some teachers to move back to their villages and work on random assignments. Mohan, worked for 15 years as a physical education teacher in a private school in Bengaluru Rural had decent income prior to the crisis, who now does painting jobs.

Due to the dearth in admissions, teachers are losing out their employment from private schools. They are now resorting to working as labourers on daily wages, shepherds, painters, or any other assignment to meet the daily needs. Another instance, where a Kannada teacher moved to his village due to lack of payments, Renukesh, who now works as a farm labourer in Magadi Taluk. A similar track is followed by Nijalingapa, who worked as a social science teacher for a private school in Bengaluru south, is presently doing sheep rearing.

Another instance is of Murthy, a mathematics teacher, who takes up odd jobs as a mason or farming. The teachers continue to hope that normalcy will be restored and their cycle of random jobs will halt when schools return to normal.