A few lessons on Teachers’ Day

Sucha Singh Gill

On the occasion of Teachers' Day, it is useful to make an assessment related to teachers, learning and education as reflected by available information in the country. Teachers have a critical role in training and education of the younger generation since they provide education to young minds and shape the future course of development. 

Teachers provide subject education, both general and professional, and a teacher is the first role model for young minds. A school-going child obeys the teacher more than his/her parents in learning the subject as well as in shaping behaviour. A teacher teaches humanism, tolerance, reason, adventure for ideas and the search for truth. This is the reason that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, in his convocation address at Allahabad University on December 13, 1947, said that “If universities discharge their duty adequately, then it is well with the nation and people”.  Because of the role of a teacher in shaping the future destiny, a teacher is aptly known as a nation builder. 

The Sixth Pay Commission and the Chaddha Committee of the UGC recognised the crucial role of teachers in society and recommended respectable pay scales for school and university teachers, respectively. There was substantial improvement in the pay of teachers, along with other employees of the government.  A large number among them have turned consumers of luxuries.  Besides regular teachers in government and aided institutions, there are a large number of teachers in unaided private institutions who are paid very low salaries, sometimes even below the minimum wage of unskilled workers.

It is well known that many among them get a monthly salary of Rs 5,000  as compared to Rs 50,000 paid to a regular teacher.  Even within the government and government-aided private institutions there are several varieties of teachers, such as part-time teachers, guest teachers, PTA teachers, temporary teachers, para-teachers who belong to the highly exploited category of teachers who find it very difficult to eke out their living.  They are forced to resort to private coaching or giving tuitions to academically weak students. 

 A healthy nation cannot afford to allow exploitation of the vast number of its teachers and fleecing the students and their parents through private coaching.  This message needs to be picked up by a dynamic nation which India has become.

A teacher is able to perform better, particularly in a school, if the enabling environment is conducive.  This relates to healthy governance and administration structure, proper school building, adequate and qualified number of teachers in the schools, availability of laboratories, libraries, safe drinking water and toilet facilities.  It is under these circumstances that a teacher can better perform the function as a nation builder.  Except for a few privileged schools, most schools lack these facilities.  This is especially true for rural schools and also for government schools and aided private schools in the urban areas, generally for students belonging to poor families.  Quality education provided is very low.  PRATHAM has been bringing out its Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for rural areas for several years on the quality of education.  A common observation is that a large number of students studying in the Class VII are unable to read the text of Class IV and cannot solve simple sums of this class. They drop out quickly after Class VIII after which they face examination.  The promotion to higher class (up to Class VII) is made without examination in ordinary government and government-aided private schools.  This is not the practice in the private English medium schools in the towns and cities.  There is now a clear divide in the society: schools for haves and schools for have nots.  Can this nation afford social segregation at its present stage of social and economic development?  This has to be avoided to build an integrated nation rather than the divided nation. 

Another fall out of the present system of education is fast emerging learning deficit among the students.  The PRATHAM reports (ASER) have been measuring this as proportion of Class VII students who could not read the text of Class IV and also percentage of students who could not solve simple sums of this class.  This learning deficit is now spreading to students in higher education.  In schools, no-detention policy explains the learning deficit.  In the post- school education, the policy of maximum promotion has created a similar situation, especially in higher education.  A recent survey of 200 students of MA (economics) from postgraduate colleges of economics, (run under a Maharashtra State University) bring out that a simple equation of Class VII mathematics could not be solved by 76.5 per cent of them.  Hardly 25 per cent among them read the newspaper and 73.5 per cent could not explain the concept of gross domestic product (GDP).  The books mentioned in the syllabus of international and Indian economists were not found in the college libraries.  “In reality, though, none of them was actually referred,” because most of students come from Marathi language medium (Shankar and Sahni EPW, August1, 2015).  The situation is not different in other parts of the country also in other subjects.  This learning deficit is, now, also present at the research-degree level like M. Phil and Ph.D.  This nation cannot afford such a large learning deficit.  This should be probed in depth via genuine research to confront the educational administrators and also to involve teachers collectively in serious debate to find viable solutions across the country. 

Education can provide three types of skills: Academic skills that can be measured through maths and literacy; generic or life skills, that include critical and creative thinking, behavioural and computing skills; and lastly, technical skills directly associated with professional skills.  Educational institutions, from schools to higher education, provide academic and technical skills but are poor in providing generic skills. Generic skills are very important in terms of contribution in knowledge growth and coping up strategies in life. Every young person needs generic skills in equal importance.  In an age of fast-changing life, breaking up of joint family system and very busy parents the task of imparting generic skills falls on the teachers.  Students have to be prepared to face academic stress, violence including bullying, sexual permissiveness, drug abuse, crowding, poor infrastructure and a deep social divide. How many teachers have the capability  to impart such skills to students?  How many teachers inspire the confidence among the students and depend on teachers for sharing their problems? It is necessary that teachers pose these questions  individually and collectively and debate among themselves.

Teachers have to look beyond their salary and service conditions and connect with higher values of their profession and society. The society in general and the governments must reflect to assess whether they are providing enabling environment to the teachers to perform the task of nation building.  Through identification of the deficiencies and the resolve to remove them through positive intervention within a time frame it may get positive results.  The Kothari Commission left a task for the country in 1966 that 6 per cent of the GDP must be spent by the government for  education over and above individual spending, remains unfulfilled even today. Such neglect is unjustifiable and is the greatest stumbling roadblock to make effective use of India's demographic dividend. 

The writer is Professor for South Asia at the Centre for Rural Research and Industrial Development, Chandigarh