School Level: Make Teaching Aspirational - Part 1

"It is a beautiful thing when career and passion come together." ~Unattributed. When I think deeper about this, it strikes me how rarely this is true of teachers. Most teachers have come to be a part of this profession as a second-choice career, as did I. I never thought I was born to teach and took up my first teaching assignment as a break from a "mainstream" career.

I wish I could back this with numbers, but sadly in India, teaching is still perceived as something you do when you can't or don't want to do anything else. The education sector itself has no organized initiatives that will help elevate the status of a teacher's role. In this series, I am attempting to analyze teaching from three aspects - access, quality, and equity. In this post, we'll talk about access to a teacher's role.

In India, the barriers to entry to becoming a teacher are none. That is to say, teaching is not a highly selective role. Anyone who is a graduate in any stream can be a teacher. You must be willing to start off with a four-figure monthly salary and no voice in the ecosystem you are stepping into. I remember, when I was in talks about my first teaching role, I reached out to an aunt who'd been a teacher for decades for advice about salary negotiation. On asking if I should quote what the pay commission proposed to pay, she laughed and said that I wouldn't get the job! She was right. The salary offered was less than1/5th of it!

You are not required to have a coveted degree or specialized skills. This is quite visible from almost all ads for teachers I've come across. Here are a few examples :

Example 1 : Source - LinkedIn

Example 2 : Source - Monster India

Example 3: Source: Monster India

The common aspect in all the above ads is none of them talk about which discipline(s) the ad is for, what skills apart from teaching/facilitating the applicant is expected to possess as an individual contributor and as a team player, how is the applicant expected to participate as a part of the larger teaching-learning ecosystem and what kind of upskilling opportunities they may expect as a part of the teaching community in the institution. No surprise, it's because no one thinks in those lines. Teaching is looked at as a primitive and elementary role even by people who have been a part of the community for several years. It's not rocket science, but it's not so straightforward as the above ads make it either.

Let's also think about school websites. Most websites I've come across, address only the parents and ask prospective teachers to get in touch through a form or an email address that possibly also has a lot of non-academic emails coming in. Personally, I feel that's treating applicants as second-rate citizens, with no transparency or voice in the application system.

Moving to the selection process, almost all institutions follow a standard process of interview - demo - negotiation, and the only skills that are tested are the candidates' communication and classroom management skills. While ever so often, an ad might ask for a graduate degree in a particular subject, in a lot of schools, subject allotment is done on the basis of the school's requirement and not on the teacher's expertise or interest. I wonder when we will actually look at teaching to be as novel and dynamic as we say it is.

I'm not calling this an exhaustive list, but, if we were to look at possible solutions to this, here are a few I can think of. Schools must invest time, effort and qualified resources into:

1. Creating a school culture that promotes teacher voice and growth and a hiring process that reflects this.
2. Making sure every touchpoint with prospective teachers reflects how much the school values them as a part of the school ecosystem and as people who are going to make it holistic. This could involve making the entire hiring, selection and orientation process transparent and talkingg about what kind of environment teachers are provided with in your school, give them a glimpse into how a teacher is treated.
3. Making the interview process robust and two-way. Collectively with representatives of teachers, students and parents list some negotiable and non-negotiable skills and create a selection rubric that makes the hiring process objective. Invite exploratory questions from teachers and appreciate ones that go beyond salary and holiday provisions.
4. Ask teachers questions beyond marriage and family planning. Treat them like individual beings whose personalities extend beyond their spouses and relationships. Guage them on their ability to take initiatives, to learn and adapt continuously and to contribute to the environment of the school meaningfully.

NEP 2020 says, "The quality of teacher education, recruitment, deployment, service conditions, and empowerment of teachers is not where it should be, and consequently the quality and motivation of teachers does not reach the desired standards." Although this statement talks about the status of government schools across the country, it is also a reality across ~5.5 lakh non-government and private (registered) schools in the country.

I'm writing this with the hope that it furthers a large-scale conversation on the hiring and selection process for teachers in an attempt to make it more aspirational. If we begin now, with concentrated and concerted efforts, perhaps in a decade or so, we may be able to make teaching an aspirational career and find a solution to the teacher shortage in the Indian education system that stands in crores presently!

PS: This is an opinionated narrative based on what I've experienced and heard from many friends I've made in my line of work over years. I'm open to being corrected, having discussions around this and being provided with numbers that prove otherwise to whatever is stated here. I'm looking forward to the learning. :)