The schoolteacher's lot in India has never been very happy. Gujarat witnessed a dramatic expression of teachers' unhappiness when they observed this year's Teacher's Day as 'Black Day', refusing to withdraw their eight-day strike in spite of the threat of the Essential Services Maintenance Act. They feel they should have higher pay and transport allowance. Although there was no such unpleasantness in West Bengal, the meeting organized by the state government on Teacher's Day was forced to deal with the most demanding issues. The chief minister himself promised that the government would do everything to smooth the passage of pension payments to teachers. This is a longstanding ill. Retired teachers, many of whom depend on the pension, are either simply unable to get it released or are harassed ceaselessly when they go to collect their pensions. Apart from the material distress this causes, there is also unseemly indignity and hopeless frustration. It is not something senior schoolteachers should have to deal with. The whole question of 'respect' to teachers has now got caught up with the issue of private tuition and the larger issue of market forces. The chief minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, referred to both, but there is a need to go deeper into the problems. At the school level, private tuition in less privileged areas has much to do with the needs of both teachers and students. It is possible to stop the practice by routing extra help for students through the school in question. Accompanied by an appropriate salary structure for teachers, this strategy could work. On the other hand, the problem of 'commodification' of education demands a different mindset. Teaching and respect for teaching will have to live with and adjust to the changes of attitude induced by market forces. Commitment and pride in the work should be more prized in the new world. Certainly teachers themselves have a great deal to do with that. At the same time, the lack of social prestige associated with teaching in schools is not their creation. The state cannot ignore the material basis of prestige in society. Neither can it overlook the fact that miserable working conditions create miserable workers. A Teacher's Day can be meaningful only when these problems have been worked out.