Every morning, before the first bell rings, Sunita Devi has already put in hours of invisible work. She has coaxed a child to come to school after maybe a night of domestic violence, reassured another who hasn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon, and calmed a student terrified about an exam she knows he is not prepared for. By the time Sunita steps into her classroom in a government school on the outskirts of Patna, she has already played the roles of counsellor, mediator, caregiver and crisis manager.
None of this appears in her job description.
Across India’s low-resource schools, teachers carry an emotional workload that is rarely acknowledged, measured or supported. They are expected not only to teach, but to absorb the anxieties, disruptions and vulnerabilities that children bring into classrooms shaped by poverty, migration, illness and instability. This emotional labour is not incidental to teaching; for millions of educators, it has become central to the job.
But policy conversations around education continue to focus almost exclusively on infrastructure, curriculum and learning outcomes. The emotional work of teachers remains largely invisible.
Teaching in the shadow of social distress
India has made significant progress in expanding access to schooling. Enrolment rates are high, and classrooms are fuller than ever. But the profile of students has changed. A large proportion of children in government and low-fee private schools are coming from households facing economic precarity, food insecurity and social stress.
Teachers are often the first adults outside the family to notice signs of distress. A sudden drop in attendance, unexplained aggression, withdrawal or declining performance frequently has less to do with academic difficulty and more to do with what is unfolding at home.
Studies on child mental health in India suggest rising levels of anxiety, behavioural challenges and emotional dysregulation among school-going children, trends exacerbated by the pandemic and its aftermath. In low-resource settings, where access to counsellors or psychologists is minimal, teachers become the default emotional support system.
This is labour that requires empathy, patience and constant emotional regulation. It is also labour for which teachers receive little training.
The cost of caring without support
Unlike academic instruction, emotional labour cannot be standardised or scheduled. It spills into breaks, after-school hours and weekends. Teachers worry about children long after they have left the classroom.
Over time, this takes a toll. Research globally has linked high emotional demands in teaching to burnout, stress and attrition. In India, where teacher shortages already strain the system, emotional exhaustion compounds existing challenges.
A recent survey by teacher unions highlighted increasing reports of fatigue, anxiety and a sense of being overwhelmed among educators in government schools. Many teachers speak of feeling responsible for problems they are not equipped to solve, from child abuse to severe poverty.
The irony is stark: while teachers are expected to nurture emotionally resilient children, there is little investment in their own emotional well-being.
Administrative load and emotional labour of teachers
Emotional labour does not exist in isolation. It intersects with growing administrative demands. Teachers in low-resource schools often juggle teaching with data entry, compliance reporting, election duties and census work. Each additional task chips away at time and emotional bandwidth.
When a teacher must choose between completing paperwork and listening to a distressed student, the system has already failed both.
This overload also affects how emotional labour is perceived. Because it is not formally recognised, it is treated as an individual failing rather than a systemic issue when teachers struggle to cope.
Why emotional labour of teachers matters for learning
The connection between emotional well-being and learning is well established. Children who feel safe, seen and supported are more likely to attend school regularly, participate in class and persist through difficulty.
Teachers are central to creating this environment. Their ability to manage classrooms, build trust and respond to emotional cues directly shapes learning outcomes, especially for children facing adversity.
Ignoring the emotional labour of teachers, therefore, is not just an issue of workforce welfare. It undermines educational quality itself.
Gendered expectations in the classroom
Emotional labour in teaching is also deeply gendered. A majority of primary school teachers in India are women, and societal expectations around caregiving often spill into professional roles. Female teachers are implicitly expected to be nurturing, patient and self-sacrificing.
This expectation normalises emotional labour as part of “good teaching” rather than recognising it as work that requires support and boundaries. Male teachers, too, face emotional demands, but are often less encouraged or trained to address them.
The result is a silent burden disproportionately carried by women, with little acknowledgment or institutional backing.
Training gaps and missed opportunities
Teacher training in India has traditionally focused on pedagogy, subject knowledge and classroom management. Emotional literacy, trauma-informed teaching and self-care are rarely prioritised.
But many teachers are navigating classrooms where students have experienced loss, displacement or chronic stress. Without training, teachers rely on instinct, personal experience and improvisation.
This gap is not inevitable. Countries that have invested in social-emotional learning frameworks for teachers report better outcomes for both educators and students. India’s National Education Policy acknowledges the importance of holistic development, but translating this vision into teacher support remains uneven.
Where civil society steps in
In this landscape, civil society organisations have begun to play a complementary role. Some NGOs working in education recognise that supporting teachers emotionally is essential to sustaining learning interventions.
Smile Foundation’s education programmes offer one such example. While the organisation’s primary focus is on improving access and learning outcomes for children in underserved communities, its work increasingly acknowledges the emotional dimensions of teaching.
Through teacher training modules, mentoring and on-ground support, Smile Foundation equips educators to handle classroom challenges that go beyond textbooks. Teachers are trained to recognise signs of distress, manage mixed-ability classrooms and engage with families sensitively.
Importantly, these interventions do not position teachers as therapists, but as supported professionals with referral pathways and peer networks. By reducing isolation and offering practical tools, such programmes help mitigate emotional burnout.
Smile Foundation’s integrated approach — combining education with health, nutrition and psychosocial support — also reduces the emotional load on teachers by addressing some root causes of student distress outside the classroom.
The blind spot with emotional labour of teachers
Despite growing recognition of mental health and well-being in education discourse, teachers’ emotional labour remains a policy blind spot. Budget allocations focus on infrastructure and teacher recruitment, but rarely on emotional support systems.
School counsellors are scarce, especially in government schools. Where they exist, they are often shared across multiple institutions, limiting their impact.
A more realistic approach would treat emotional labour as a shared responsibility rather than an individual burden. This means investing in counsellor networks, peer support groups, and ongoing professional development focused on emotional resilience.
Reframing teacher support as system investment
Supporting teachers emotionally is often framed as a “soft” intervention. In reality, it is a strategic investment. Teachers who feel supported are more likely to remain in the profession, engage students effectively and adapt to reform.
As India grapples with learning recovery post-pandemic, teacher well-being becomes even more critical. Expecting educators to rebuild learning while ignoring their emotional strain is neither fair nor effective.
Towards recognition and respect
Making emotional labour visible does not mean adding another expectation to teachers’ already full plates. It means acknowledging what they are already doing and providing the support structures to sustain it.
This includes:
- integrating emotional literacy into teacher training,
- reducing administrative overload,
- strengthening referral systems for child mental health,
- and fostering school cultures where teachers can seek help without stigma.
Civil society initiatives demonstrate that such support is possible even in resource-constrained settings. Scaling these practices requires political will and sustained investment.
Conclusion
The emotional labour of teachers in low-resource schools is one of India’s quiet educational pillars. It keeps children coming back to classrooms, holds communities together and absorbs shocks that the system is slow to address.
Recognising and supporting this labour is not optional. It is central to any serious effort to improve learning outcomes and build resilient schools.
As the country debates the future of education, it is time to look beyond metrics and mandates, and to acknowledge the emotional work that makes learning possible — one teacher, one classroom, one day at a time.
