Primary school
teachers are more valuable than we think
They set the foundation for a child’s education.
Let’s not underestimate their role today
She was 23,
living in that village alone, 600km from her parents’ home in Nanjangud near
Mysore. She had been selected as a teacher two years before and posted there.
The lush paddy fields encircling the villages’ government primary school were
incongruous in the arid climate of Bijapur district. They were there because
Krishna fed those fields generously through the canals of one its many dams. In
front of the one-room school was a small pond. I met Uma for the first time in
2011 in that school.
The school
had 25 students, distributed equally across classes I to V. She taught all three
subjects of the curriculum, and for all the five classes sitting together, she
was the only teacher. We had reached almost at the end of the school day.
Still, her energy didn’t seem any less than that of her students. When the
classes ended, the children did not leave, they merely moved out and started
playing as we chatted with Uma.
How was it
that all her students seemed to be ahead of expectations for their respective
classes on both language and math? Her response wasn’t elaborate. She merely
said, “All children are inherently very good, and I love teaching
children."
Two elderly men came through the paddy fields to take their grandchildren back
home. They decided to join our chat. They could not stop gushing about their
village school teacher. Uma seemed to have transformed the school in her two
years there. In gratitude, the village had collected money to build a toilet at
the school.
Six years
later, I was at a high school in a dusty town in North-East Karnataka. It
shared a boundary wall with the town bus stand. Blaring horns and revving
engines could be heard from any classroom. That is where I met Uma for the
second time. We talked again.
The spring
in her step that I had seen amid the paddy fields was missing, though her
engagement with students seemed no less. Was she jaded after eight years of
being a teacher? Or was it just an “off day"? Or perhaps the racket from
the bus stand? It was none of this, she said. It was simply that she absolutely
loved teaching young children, while with these older students she worked hard
and did well, but did not have the same sense of fulfilment.
So, why did she move from a primary to a high school? Because, the salary is
more and the social status is higher.
Uma’s story
is very common because the compensation and career prospects for high-school
teachers are more attractive than for primary-school teachers. The Indian
education system clearly values teachers of higher classes more. Social status
is a function of this value. And, it also reflects in the better working
conditions of high-school teachers.
It is not
that high-school teachers have perfect conditions and scintillating career
prospects, but just that they are much better off. The most dramatic example of
this valuation anomaly is the case of early-childhood educators, the Anaganwadi
workers; they are not even recognized as teachers. Unsurprisingly, teachers of
lower classes are continually seeking opportunities to move on to the higher
classes.
The
signalling of lower value is reinforced by lower expectations on
qualifications: a two-year diploma after class XII for primary-school teachers
versus two undergraduate degrees after class XII for teachers of higher
classes.
This lower
valuation of primary (and middle) school teachers is deeply flawed. Teaching
young children is as challenging, if not more, than teaching older children.
The expertise required in both roles are equally complex and deep—while being
somewhat different. And the contribution of teachers of early classes is in
many ways more important than that of high-school teachers, since they truly
set the foundation for and trajectory of a child’s education.
This flawed
valuation of teaching roles hobbles the entire teacher management system—in
attracting, retaining and engaging teachers in primary and middle schools
vis-à-vis high schools. More capable individuals prefer higher classes at entry
as well as through their careers. This doesn’t mean that lower classes don’t
have good teachers; just that on an average, the incentive structures pull
teachers away from lower classes. This anomaly is also patently unfair and
unjust.
The draft
National Education Policy 2019 (NEP) has a slew of measures to correct this
anomaly. It equalizes compensation and career prospects across the lower and
higher classes. Teachers would have no incentive to move across primary to high
schools. It extends this equalization to early childhood educators. It also
provides for good working conditions for all teachers. And it completely
re-architects the qualification norms for all teachers: to a four-year
high-quality integrated degree in teaching after class XII.
These policy
actions, if implemented, will transform the world of teachers in India. It will
certainly require some doing, including a significant increase in public
investment, as the NEP does recommend. And, when it gets done, no Uma will
leave a role that she loves. And the most important foundational years of
schooling will not lose enthusiastic and competent educators.
Source | https://www.livemint.com/
Regards
Mr. Pralhad Jadhav
Master of Library & Information Science (NET
Qualified)
Research Scholar (IGNOU)
Senior Manager @ Knowledge Repository
Khaitan & Co
Twitter Handle | @Pralhad161978
Mobile @
9665911593
