The Teachers
The guru-shishya tradition of India is as old as our culture, dating back to the times of the Puranas and before. It has been extolled in the Upanishads where a Shanti Mantra starts with the invocation to the Almighty to protect both the student and the teacher. In the Ramayana the young princes of Ayodhya were sent to the gurukul of Vishwamitra to learn the principles of good governance and warfare. Even the revered Lord Krishna from whose divine lips the Gita came forth, learned the 64 arts and crafts from Sage Sandipani.
The respect accorded to these teachers was commensurate with their wisdom and the state ensuring that these humble men were allowed to continue their dedicated service to the refinement and dissemination of knowledge without undue hassles.
I remember my days in school when we looked up to our teachers in awe and parents held them in high esteem and regard. These men and women were aware of the responsibility that had been entrusted to them – that of shaping the character, value references and minds of the young boys and girls. There were quite a few teachers who had spent close to forty years of dedicated and selfless service and still taught with such enthusiasm that it would put us to shame.
But I sense something is terribly wrong .. When Amartya Sen talked about getting India’s primary education system on track he could not have been further from the truth. Teaching as a profession is dying .. I do not have statistics to quote but I can sense it in my observations and conversations. Out of the thousands of graduates who pass out of institutes of higher learning, I doubt if teaching would be the first choice of profession for them. I draw your attention to the word ‘first choice’, since this profession should not be taken up for lack of better options since it requires passion and dedication which can only come from an inner calling.
A deeper analysis will also show that teaching as a profession does not pay much in comparison to jobs behind blue and green trading terminals. At the end of the day every one of us desires to secure a sound future for our children and if the profession that we are pursuing does not offer the same then the anxiety to see our children succeed outweighs any passion that we would have had for teaching.
Offhand I can suggest remedial solutions for this issue … making teaching assignments more lucrative by offering pay hikes may not be the only way. We can start off contact programs targeting graduates where they are made conscious of this problem that is gripping us. We must tell them that numbers alone do not matter; it is the quality of input that is essential. They must sense the fact that institutions are not made by walls and lecture complexes; the ‘software’ is equally important. Teaching assistantship can be made a part of their curriculum where they can expose themselves to real time teaching assignments not only in colleges but if they desire then in schools too.
This problem must be studied well and most importantly soon… else we might have a world where there is nobody left to educate us.
The respect accorded to these teachers was commensurate with their wisdom and the state ensuring that these humble men were allowed to continue their dedicated service to the refinement and dissemination of knowledge without undue hassles.
I remember my days in school when we looked up to our teachers in awe and parents held them in high esteem and regard. These men and women were aware of the responsibility that had been entrusted to them – that of shaping the character, value references and minds of the young boys and girls. There were quite a few teachers who had spent close to forty years of dedicated and selfless service and still taught with such enthusiasm that it would put us to shame.
But I sense something is terribly wrong .. When Amartya Sen talked about getting India’s primary education system on track he could not have been further from the truth. Teaching as a profession is dying .. I do not have statistics to quote but I can sense it in my observations and conversations. Out of the thousands of graduates who pass out of institutes of higher learning, I doubt if teaching would be the first choice of profession for them. I draw your attention to the word ‘first choice’, since this profession should not be taken up for lack of better options since it requires passion and dedication which can only come from an inner calling.
A deeper analysis will also show that teaching as a profession does not pay much in comparison to jobs behind blue and green trading terminals. At the end of the day every one of us desires to secure a sound future for our children and if the profession that we are pursuing does not offer the same then the anxiety to see our children succeed outweighs any passion that we would have had for teaching.
Offhand I can suggest remedial solutions for this issue … making teaching assignments more lucrative by offering pay hikes may not be the only way. We can start off contact programs targeting graduates where they are made conscious of this problem that is gripping us. We must tell them that numbers alone do not matter; it is the quality of input that is essential. They must sense the fact that institutions are not made by walls and lecture complexes; the ‘software’ is equally important. Teaching assistantship can be made a part of their curriculum where they can expose themselves to real time teaching assignments not only in colleges but if they desire then in schools too.
This problem must be studied well and most importantly soon… else we might have a world where there is nobody left to educate us.
posted by Shreerang at 7:49 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home