Mathru Devobhavah… Pithru Devobhavah… Aacharya Devobhava…. Is a Sanskrit phrase which means… ‘Salute thy Mother and Father and also salute they teacher’. It is the unison of the parents that brings you into this world. You are here as an incomplete creation by God. It is for this divine artist, your teacher to sculpt you into an appreciable artifact and a complete human being. Parents focus the rays of life on their child, but it is the teacher who guides a child into the light. The lucidity of a teacher is very important, for, the teacher plays a vibrant role in molding a child. It is very important to assess the capabilities of a particular teacher and allot her/him into what and where she/ he excel at.
The Department of Elementary Education and Literacy Ministry of Human Resource Development (DOEEL) is responsible for national policy formulation and planning. The DOEEL is divided into 10 units; each headed by a joint secretary. The units formulate plans for elementary, secondary, post-secondary and adult education. The ministry and the DOEEL collaborate with national and state institutions in carrying out their functions. The Planning Commission and the state planning departments are responsible for drafting the Annual Five-year Plans. The Central Advisory Board on Education is the chief advisory body on all educational matters. It is chaired by the minister of HRD and includes state ministers of education and leading experts in the field. At the state level, state departments or secretariats of education support state ministries of education, which are accountable to the chief minister.
Policies that aim at access and achievement are of little consequence without a supportive administrative and management structure. In most states, the district is an important unit of administration and the district educational officer is responsible to the state department for implementing and supervising elementary education. In addition, block education officers serve as inspectors and supervisors. More recently, block resource centers and cluster resource centers were set up in 1994 under the aegis of DPEP to provide academic support to teachers.
Responsibilities for education are shared not only between national and state bodies, but also state and intermediate bodies. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments in 1993 delegated the responsibility for primary education to locally elected bodies at the district, block and village levels. According to Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal, software for transparent teacher recruitment was ready and even the methodology of its implementation by the States was also ready. He also underlined the need for a transparent teacher transfer policy. He emphasised that the role of the teacher, of the school, must be to ensure that education was child centric.
The Government highlights the role of the Government Schools system in the implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE). Addressing the valedictory session of the Conference of State School Education Secretaries, it was pointed out that 93% children were studying in government schools. The RTE has made the government privileged to take care of the government school system and a unique opportunity to raise the level of elementary education in the country.
The States too have been urged to implement the RTE with enthusiasm. The Centre has allocated additional funds for the States and made the sharing pattern in a ratio on 65:35 for five years and also recommended the States to work towards appropriate teacher qualifications and infrastructure norms as mandated by the RTE.
A well-defined transfer policy of teachers and on-line transfer system brings in speed, accountability and reduces third party interventions. The efforts made in decentralisng the system and de-concentration of power of the Directors has yielded results. It also suggests that the appropriate use of technology facilitates new public management reforms in education.
However, there is needed to be more transparent by informing all teachers and others about the transfer policy and clearly elaborating the criteria and weightage to different aspects like medical grounds, etc. The teachers and representatives of the teachers’ association are happy with the reforms but still find that because of vacancy related transfer policy there are many teachers who have to travel a long distance for not being able to get the right posting. This problem is acute in resettlement colonies where the pupil teacher ratio is still higher. According to them, there is need to build in more infrastructure and steps initiated well in advance to fill up the vacant teaching positions.
Staff Selection Board takes its own time in filling up the vacancies of teachers. Since the scientific criterion is used in e-governance the anticipated vacancies can be worked out well in advance and even an advance panel can help in reducing the number of vacancies and even teacher pupil ratio. Further, although the Department considers the Transfer Policy as transparent yet there is ample apprehension that the time lag in not making the list readily available on line there is a possibility of back-door bargaining involving senior officers as well. This gap could be bridged through a third party monitoring into the process in a more imaginative manner.
There are teachers who love children and were highly motivated regardless of where they were posted. These were exceptional people. It was, indeed, humbling to meet teachers who worked hard despite all odds. We come across situations where good teachers received tremendous community support that led to improvement in their teaching and overall results. The reverse was also true. There were villages that had a wonderful teacher in the past but could do little to motivate/support a new teacher who just refused to teach.
When there is a scarcity for faculty, it has been noted that the teachers could not cope with the situation and had simply given up. There were teachers who were indifferent to the children and did not really care if they learnt to read and write. They promoted children, maintained records and did what they were asked to do.
We discovered no correlation between motivation levels and teacher qualification, training, residence, gender and pay scale. However, a school with good infrastructure and connectivity could hold back more teachers for more hours. It is difficult to say whether this translates into more instruction time or higher learning levels. As discussed in the opening paragraphs of this paper, teachers said they were motivated – but their understanding of motivation is different from ours. Both teachers and administrators gave a lot of importance to daily presence, compiling and sending the necessary data and maintaining discipline. They valued justice and fair play. They were ready to work with administrators and political leaders who they felt were just, and appreciated and rewarded hard work. But rapport with children, learning levels and actual classroom environment were not seen as being a part of motivation. These factors did not figure in any discussion with teachers or administrators!
Teacher motivation is a complex issue across India. There is virtually no incentive for teachers who go beyond the call of duty and empower their students to learn and move on in life. On the other hand, teachers who network with political leaders and local bureaucrats manage plum postings and, if they are lucky, teachers’ awards too!
Most of the people opine that 25 to 30% teachers are highly motivated and work very hard regardless of their personal circumstances. Another 30% comply with all the formal requirements – regularity, attendance, data on enrolment and retention, mid-day meal distribution and so on. These teachers have the potential but the system has worn them out. The remaining 40 to 45% can be categorised as ‘indifferent’– they are just not motivated and really do not care.
Strict monitoring by a highly motivated head master or a block/district official can tip the scales and ensure better functioning. Given the right stimulus, teachers are known to perform well. The fundamental problem is that this stimulus is lacking. Most educated middle-class professionals – those who form the backbone of the administration and the larger community of stakeholders – have abandoned government schools. Their children study in private aided or unaided schools. They do not have a personal stake in making the system work. Therefore, they just let the system drift along while making sure the data that is fed upwards is acceptable.
Though teacher input based policies (increasing teacher education, training, experience and pay) can make a difference to student performance, an influential strand of the subject is that teacher is a teacher despite the fact of the place she is present at. So it is advisable not to get ‘addicted’ to a particular teaching method and as a result, tamper the academia.