Abhijit Dutta, CEO of Concept Educations, has a recipe for better teaching
THE RIGHT to Education Act guarantees free and compulsory education for children between the ages of 6-14. Ideally, free and compulsory education should also ensure that the students are not denied of good teaching. Yet, the state of most of the teachers in our country remains as woeful as ever.
A full decade after launch of the ambitious Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (Education for All) initiative in the new millennium; introduction of the free primary school mid-day meal scheme; imposition of a 2 percent cess for primary education (2004); passage of the historic Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 and an estimated Rs 1,000,000crore having been poured into the country’s 1.20 million government primary schools over the past decade, there’s little to show for it. On the contrary, learning outcomes in the country’s 1.05 million government rural primaries and upper primaries have gone from bad to worse. When this kind of money is involved, one expects the best in terms of teaching. But if this too is compromised, it is a gross misuse of public funds. If the government allows such mediocrity to thrive just to pacify political interests, they will not only be siphoning off public money, but they will have let down the beneficiaries of well-meaning educational programmes.
The strength of a school lies in its teaching. A student may not have books; a classroom may not have a blackboard; a school may not have classrooms; but no school will ever function without the presence of teachers.
Considering the kind of responsibilities abreast a teacher, their training should be excellent if quality education is to be expected. Most teachers today take up the profession because they think that employment in an attractive proposition; which is true, considering teachers on a govt. salary are paid obscene amounts. Whilst the private school teachers are paid less, most people join private schools with the ambition of using it as a ladder to land a position at a government school eventually.
Most of such teachers have not been trained well, neither are they fully knowledgeable of their subject. The small minority of the best and the brightest in our country almost always are herded to medical, engineering or law. Most people are teaching because they felt they had no other choice. They have no interest in the profession, or the subject matter.
This is why students cannot connect with the teacher. Their teaching methods are more conventional than is acceptable by today’s student community. Kids of this generation have become smarter than we give them credit for. Teachers must know how to cope with that. They must have an in-depth knowledge of their subject, and should be willing to do their homework and catch up on the latest in their respective specialties. Most importantly, they must know how to communicate. This is quintessential of becoming a good teacher. A degree less will do, but it is pointless to have a teacher who cannot dispense all the knowledge that he has. Because most of the teachers themselves are not involved in their subject, they discourage forward and curious thinking by the students. They feel intimidated, which is one of the biggest causes for absenteeism today. The absence rate of teachers in our schools is one out of four. If the back bone of our education system is a no-show, how to we expect it to stand straight and live up to the promises that were made to us?
Sensationalising an issue instead of finding a solution for it will not help. Wads and wads have been written and published and broadcasted highlighting the poor and discriminating system. Even the government has started to find this hogwash extremely tedious. Crying out and seeking help is not enough anymore. It is up to us now, we either make it or we break it. It’s high time we bring forth a new breed of rockstar teachers. Teachers, who are bubbling with enthusiasm because teaching is all they ever wanted to do. Teachers, who believe the garb of social reform is with them now. Teachers, who can make themselves fall in sync with the mentality of the students. They must have common interests. They should realise that students have a personal life outside of their classrooms. A teacher is more than just a teacher. We’ve all read it in the scriptures. A teacher finds his place right below the supreme, even above our parents. We need people to live up to that position. We need teachers to be heroes, so that students can look up to them; people that students can go to, for even the silliest of questions. Isn’t that what teaching is supposed to be all about?