The teachers, who started their mammoth agitation on December 10, finally called off the stir and agreed to break bread with the state government on an array of demands on January 20. The extra push to call off the agitation came not from an overarching concern for students in a sweat about their exams, but a word or more put in by an extra-constitutional authority.

A mere assurance from Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray that the teachers' demands will be favourably considered seemed enough for the union to throw down a gauntlet it had fiercely clung to. The main plaint of the 35,000-odd teachers affiliated to the union is the anomaly in the revised pay scale, where secondary school teachers get a better deal despite belonging to the samescale. Plus, they were asking for a three-tier scale (basic/senior/selection) like in the case with primary and secondary teachers.

Questions will definitely be raised about the union's seeming capitulation. The more important query is about the costs, literally, for the state government of brokering peace with junior college teachers. Vice president of the Maharashtra Federation of Junior College Teachers Organisation (MFJCTO), M R Andhalkar, claimed that the whistle had been blown on the strike for the ``sake of the students''. But Thackeray's summons may have come a bit too late for anxious college managements, students and parents, who are now wringing their hands over uncompleted syllabus, paper-setting, exam delay and evaluation. Buried in all this is the all-important question: is the hike, if carried through, feasible?

While the state government has already acceded to two of the teacher's demands - preference to part-time teachers for the post of full-time teachers in the same institution andappointment of a vice-principal in junior colleges, subject to a decision taken by the court - the big decision on a three-tier pay scale and a hike will now have to be thrashed out in the cabinet meeting scheduled for this week.

The government has maintained that it is open to a revised pay scale. But, if the teachers' demands are accepted in toto, it could spur on every section of teachers to plump for salary increases on par with their seniors, pointed out general secretary of the Mumbai Sikshak Sangathana, A R Tambe.

The Sangathana represents 500 management bodies of educational institutions.While one doesn't question the demand for a pay hike, the quantum leap in salaries for which classrooms went abegging for over a month is debatable. The hike being demanded is equivalent to the salary of a degree college teacher at the basic level which is University Grants Commission scale - something a state government can ill-afford - and the senior government cadre at the selection grade! Apart from thecascading effect the hike would have in government colleges, even managements of private educational institutions would have to pay their teachers more, since a Supreme Court order stipulates that the pay scales of teachers have to be on par for both private and government educational institutions. Naturally, then, fees would have to be raised, and the vision of parents then going on the warpath is hardly too far off.

According to Andhalkar, if the hike being demanded seems too steep, the government needs to say so. The union is ready for negotiations, he said, adding, ``First, the government will have to state its constraints in accepting the hike, something it hasn't done so far.''

Another issue the cabinet needs to deliberate on is an agreement way back in September 3, 1991, where the union promised the state government not to insist on a three-tier scale in lieu of a hike. According to Andhalkar, this promise was obviously made when the Fourth Pay Commission was extant, and would not hold good in achanging scenario.

Given the outflow of teachers to coaching classes and the need to improve the stock of the profession, the government needs to take a decision that will be fiscally prudent and far-sighted. Then, perhaps, unhappy teachers, empty classrooms and short-changed students will be avoided altogether.

(Sudeshna Chatterjee is a reporter with The Indian Express. She covers education.)