I Wish I was A Driver

Every one of us has a favourite teacher. Close your eyes and think back right down to your school days and you will certainly find that one teacher stands out in your mind as being the one who understood you and your potential and prompted you to excel. You will not forget that teacher all through your life. But when it comes to giving him respect and reward him for his efforts, he is taken for granted. I will share a personal incident which would highlight the position of a teacher in today’s society.

I went to a partner school to conduct teacher training programme (teacher training is a part of Elevate programme which we run in more than 600 schools). During the training, most of the teachers were sitting passively and it seemed they were not interested in getting trained. After workshop, I walked to a group of teachers and started talking to them about the training programme. One teacher started saying, “forget the training we are not even paid in time, my salary is even less than that of the director’s driver and finished by saying “I wish I was a driver “.

Listening to what she said, chill ran through my body. I thought to myself has this condition of teachers happened overnight? The answer is ‘No’. Visible symptoms have been there for years. With the implementation of RTE and in order to follow the mandatory 1:40 teacher student ratio, the shortage of teachers has increased in last few years. In spite of this shortage, teacher recruitment is a very slow and frustrating process. The primary teachers selected in Delhi in 2012 have got their appointments in 2016.Add to this the mass level corruption in teacher recruitment. In many states, appointment of regular teachers has stopped and contractual teachers have been hired to save funds.

The quality of teacher education (B.Ed.) is evident by rampant commercialization of teacher training. More than 90% of the institutes are private. Academic degrees are sold at different rates depending upon many factors like whether you want to attend classes or not. All these factors have lead to a stage where only less than 2% of Maharashtra teachers could clear the mandatory Teacher Eligibility Test (TET). The government, whatever it may say, is also not serious about bringing long overdue education reforms. CBSE, which has more than 15000 schools, was without chairman for more than 2 years. National council of teacher education (NCTE) is without Chairperson and vice chairperson. This shows the seriousness of the government.

Respect and value of teaching has eroded to such an extent that it requires desperate efforts to restore its pride. Some of the steps to restore the teacher pride and improve learning are:

• Treat teachers like professionals and pay them at par with other professionals,
• Attract better people to become teachers. USA has come up with a strategy to attract top 33% of university graduates to become teachers. And in order to do so, you not only need to compensate teachers well but also position a challenging and attractive career option.
• Change the way B.Ed. education is delivered. We can learn from China, which has only 66 dedicated universities for teacher education. Make entry and exit in B.Ed. rigorous and challenging.
• Train existing teachers: Ongoing teacher training should be given. Apart from that, teacher training should be given need- based rather than one module fits all approach.
• Focus on learning, not schooling. Follow Gujarat’s Gunotsav, which measures outcomes.
• Great leaders make great institutions. Understand the importance of school leadership. Stop appointing headmasters on the basis of seniority. A strong principal can turn around a weak school if he is an instructional leader, not only an administrator. Again, follow Gujarat and institute a headmaster eligibility test for selecting principals. Set up training centers to create school leaders.
• Start Indian Education Services on the lines of Indian Administrative Services.
• Utilize the underutilized knowledge pool of India: There are lacks of elite retired government servants who have huge knowledge base but not able to use it. We have acute shortage of teachers in Science and Maths for higher classes. We can introduce a short service of 5 years for retired government servants to take up teaching assignments, may be after clearing a test.

World’s best education system in countries like Singapore, Finland and South Korea, do many things differently than India. These nations make admissions to rigorous teacher training programs highly selective. Some also pay for these programs' tuition fees, and give students a salary or a living stipend while they train. They offer competitive compensation, so that the financial rewards from teaching suffice to attract and retain best candidates. Teachers in Finland are treated like professors at universities, and they teach fewer hours during the day, with more time devoted to lesson planning. They offer opportunities for advancement and growth in a professional working environment, and bestow enormous social prestige on the profession.

The prime minister in one of his speech talked about exporting teachers to the world but how can we think of that when we are short of teachers in our own schools. Teacher is the fulcrum of all changes in the teaching learning process and so to bring any change, restoring the professional dignity of the teachers, has to be the NATIONAL PRIORITY.

This article has been written by Avinash Agarwal who works as CEO with AIETS –a research based educational organization.