By Debasish Chowdhury
Dr S. Radhakrishan, the distinguished scholar and statesman whose birthday is what we have been celebrating since his ascendancy to India’ Presidency in 1962 as the national teachers day, had always opted to give precedence to his identity as a teacher. And perhaps he did so not without reasons. Being the excellent scholar in oriental philosophy that he was, Dr Radhakrishnan was well aware that the culture and tradition of the land he belonged to have always held its teachers in utmost reverence. Down the years, this reverence seems to be gradually evaporating into thin air. What were once reflective of a genuine reverence now are often matters of empty rhetoric reserved for the teachers on the designated day. The state sponsored gatherings organized at various headquarters on the anointed day are mere platforms to facilitate the dignitaries of various hues to display their oratorical skills in praising the teachers even though these lectures, to those they are directed at, often sound ludicrously evasive and far off the concern they ought to reflect. Perhaps the increasing commodification to which education has been subjected to these days in a society fast mutating into a consumerist culture is making a telltale impact on its traditional value base.
Somehow, we have, in our motherland, never shied away nor have ever been miserly in showering praises on our teachers. Unfortunately, these glibly flowing flowery praises have seldom translated into commensurate material packages as acknowledgement of their services. Teachers at the secondary level and down under, except for the fortunate few who are placed in directly public funded schools, work in institutions that are either purely private managed or run in a PPP mode having limited access to public exchequer through the various grants in aid schemes of the concerned state governments under whose jurisdiction it operates. Courtesy the ingenuity of our policy makers and the implementers of those policies, these teachers are often subject to the mercy and whims of their respective employers. As such, it hardly is a surprise that a bulk majority of our teachers actually earn a salary that in today’s ever soaring market standard can hardly be considered reasonable to enable the teachers make the two ends meet. The latest exercise by the UGC and the Sixth Central Pay Commission made an attempt to address this issue by asking the government to pay to the teachers a fairly reasonable and decent salary package. Eventually, the central as well as some state governments did implement the revised scheme but then the benefit of it extends only to a limited segment of teachers engaged mostly at the university and select college level institutions. Apparently, a larger chunk of the college teachers gain nothing out of it.
Teaching, many consider, is a service rather than a vocation. Education, we all know, is a mechanism by which the society deliberately passes on its accumulated knowledge, skill and values from one generation to the next. The on field transmitters in this process, the teachers, by virtue of the role they play qualify to a status of respectability. To assume, however, that the nobility associated with the profession by itself grants teachers the super human quality to focus themselves undeviatingly to their tasks on empty stomach, or that they are equipped by nature not to ever fall sick, or that they may not have a family they need to fend for, surely is a brazen travesty of the reality. Teachers not only come from but also live in the same society everyone else does and as such are without option but to go through all the routine ordeals of a social life including procuring items of their day to day needs from the same market everyone else visits and for this they certainly do not attract any special discount just because they happen to be teachers. It is any way unrealistic to build a nation of prosperity with its teachers living in perpetual penury. To indulge in the pursuit of knowledge and to transmit it to the upcoming generation when the teachers are not at peace with themselves as also their external environment surely is like asking for the impossible to happen. The state of affairs concerning the teachers by and large count as one of the most compelling reasons as to why we generally fail to attract and retain our best minds in this ostensibly noble profession. In Meghalaya, our beloved state of residency, matters pertaining to teachers as well as the overall scenario covering the domain of education, despite the official claim to have touched the 75% mark in literacy level, has a story to share which is not greatly encouraging either. Its capital city Shillong, once counted as the educational capital of India’s north east, is witness for the third time in succession to the most undesired event of the teachers staying off the state organized celebration on the Teachers’ Day. Preferring to strike the street seeking redressal of their grievances, the teachers in the state this year too have staged a protest rally in front of the official function venue. Their demands, amongst other things, include as routine a matter like regular and timely release of their salary. Protesting against government’s action or otherwise in a democratic setup is neither uncommon nor something much unexpected. The selection of the occasion to make such protests public however has a lot to tell about the level of frustration that the protesting group seeks to display. Teachers boycotting the Teachers’ Day function easily count as one such telltale occasion.
In the field of education, Meghalaya, in the ORG Marg Poll commissioned every year by the India Today group, has figured at the bottom of the list in its category for three successive years. Going by the results of the survey, the official claims of progress in the educational scenario in the state therefore leave much that can be contested. The survey conducted by Education World and C fore, however ranked two of the Shillong schools amongst the top 100 schools in the country. None of these schools operate under the state board of school education and as such may not be taken as effective indicators reflecting the general state of affairs in the majority of the schools in the state. The most damning censure of the state of affairs finds a place in the latest release of the Meghalaya State Development Report (2008-09) wherein it candidly admits that since 1981, the state’s Human Development Index (HDI) ranking has been on a constant downslide. Will it be too farfetched to presume that the never ending tussle between the teaching fraternity and the government is playing a significant role in this matter?
Education these days demands massive investment. It cannot also be denied outright that constraints on count of inadequate resource availability has often impaired the State’s ability to fund the sector according to need to enforce in the sector a visible as well as worthwhile difference. Yet, a state that can spend crores to keep its bosses perpetually flying in the air can perhaps afford to exercise its mind a little more to at least ensure that we do not make our teachers go to attend to their noble call to educate the upcoming generation in empty stomach. After all, ambiences in which both the learners and the teachers are not at peace with themselves and their shared environment hardly qualify as the ideal setup for undertaking any exercise in meaningful learning, forget quality. Myriad repeating of the adage that ‘today’s teachers are builders of the nation of our tomorrow’ hardly suffice in the matter.
Teachers of course are the kingpins in any educational setup. Scores of real life stories stand testimony as to how significant a role the teachers can and actually play in grooming the lives of their young disciples. We often get to hear in eloquent words from the fortunate ones who have risen to some position of authority as to how the tender care, love and encouragement they received from their teachers in the formative years helped shape their destiny. It apparently therefore defies logic as to why teaching, despite being hailed as one of the noblest of professions; its practitioners so often invite such unwarranted and deep apathy. All our men at the helms of affairs obviously have sat some time somewhere in a classroom to receive their early lessons. As flowing time eventually rewarded them with the authority to decide, why it is that the unbridled love and concern that once was instrumental in steering them to reach the height they now stand at, no more invoke in them the urge to at least acknowledge in real measure the un-repayable debt that they owe to these rather modest souls. Has something indeed gone awfully wrong with the value system we often claim with pride as our rightful heritage? Incensed teachers hardly are the best antidotes of the ills that afflict the society. Can we for the sake our own posterity care to take a hard look at it? Is it so very difficult indeed to extend a caring hand to those who once ungrudgingly, overriding all their constraints and limitations, made us learn to step out with pride in this worldly arena?
(Debasish Chowdhury is Principal, Women’s College, Shillong)