By TR Shanpru
Even up to this 65th year of Independence, teachers are still neglected by society in every respect and more so in their own field of work. On the 5th of September, the whole nation will render lip-service and call upon the society to have pity and sympathy on teachers. The day has turned to be a day to hurt the spirit of the teachers self-respect. On this day, lavish praises are showered on the teachers. The adulation is sham hypocrisy and pretension. At the State and National level, some rewards are given to some precious individuals, like trophies to children. There is no sanctity in its mechanism of selection and had no legal social sanction. In it there is simply a sham administration design, not to reward a few, but to ridicule the rest.
Teachers are still to find their due place in society. The objective of the teaching profession is to inculcate all-round development of the taught, with an ever-conscious mind and constant eye, on the part of teachers, to the ever-changing aptitude of modern times. Can a teacher achieve this objective with the present status he is, in the society? In the prevailing academic atmosphere a teacher is being allowed to work on as a subordinate and not as a master in the real sense of the profession. He is rendered into a technical assistant and is being circumscribed by many limitations. At present teachers are being treated equivalent to lower clerical cadre of lower division clerks in the government offices and undertakings. Teachers are expected to be nation builders, but at the same time they are being looked down upon and made to play second fiddle to other categories of government employees. Their field of work is relegated to second rate status.
The School culture, a resultant of teaching culture and all other efforts by teachers put together, is creative in nature and should not be allowed to be subvervient to any other culture. In this culture it is the teacher who plays a vital role, and democratic education should be teacher-oriented. But at present, with reference to our State, a teacher who is vitally associated with the performance of the student has no say even in matters concerning the student. The Board of School Education have no true representative from among the teachers. Even text books are just being thrust into the school, with the teachers having no say even in such vital matters. The teachers are the ones who execute and implement any educational decisions, such as examinations, text books, syllabus, etc. But as of now, they are out of the teacher’s purview. But teachers are always the scapegoats for any ills or lapses in the educational arena.
These few facts directly tells upon the mental status of the teacher and deals a severe blow to his/her prestige. So many of the talented persons who joined the teaching profession with serious intentions to uplift education for the next generation, had to flee from the educational arena, when better status, scope, prospects, facilities, emoluments lure them to other types of job. Till today, even with the scarcity of jobs, teaching job is still the last choice in the job market.
May I request society to meditate on – How can moral enthusiasm and dynamism be lit up without adequate and concrete fuel? Can proper attainments be obtained from employees who are not even recognised in their own field of work? Recognition, appreciation and recommendation should be forthcoming side by side with sincerity otherwise dynamism will be kept in oblivion.
So therefore I will not be wrong to suggest that it is high time that a Commission on Education be set up to go in depth into the anomalies in the educational arena and to find ways and means to improve the social status of the teachers. The total culture of the School should be elevated by sincere and earnest steps to treat the teachers as executive employees and not as subordinates, for they are the soul of this culture.
Given the proper and equal status as responsible co-workers in the society and nation as a whole, teachers would be very proud of proving their worth in their devoted and sacred duty of producing real conscientious citizen out of the taught, who are none other than their own children.
(The writer is Founder President of Khasi-Jaintia Deficit School Teachers Association)