Development Central

Submitted to: UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report Consultation Group for 2013 Report

Published: http://gmr2013consultation.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/gmr-2013-teaching-and-learning-for-development/#comment-29

-By Naim Keruwala

India has done a commendable job in enrolling its children to schools; a decade ago, 30 million Indian children were not in school, and today the figure is near 3 million. As per School Education Statistics (SES) in 2005-06 the enrolment of girls was over 60.2 million in primary schools. The figure has increased to 60.5 million in 2010-11. With an increased Gross enrolment ratio of over 20% in higher education, over 621 Universities and 33,500 colleges, India will be producing over 24 million graduates by the end of 2020. But here-in lies the problem, according to an earlier survey by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) only 39.5% of all graduates in the country were viewed as employable.

India is going berserk to enrol its children in schools and higher education institutes but quality has gone for a toss. Enrolment ratio has gone higher but so has the drop-out ratio. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan which means ‘Education for All’ programme in Hindi is a Government of India’s flagship programme for achievement of universalization of Elementary Education and caters to the needs of over 192 million children but according to an article in The Economic Times dated November 23, 2012; there are over 700,000 teaching posts vacant under this particular programme. Delhi, the capital city of India is facing a crunch of over 1500 teachers in government schools catering to the weaker sections of the society.

The above two paragraphs raises a number of questions, most important of them being: What is the reason for such a massive gap between the demand and supply of Teachers in government schools? Even with such a gigantic working population why the government schools in India are not able to attract the talent or provide quality education to the millions of kids in government schools across the country. To understand the issue and reasons, I contacted some government school teachers and principals in Ahmedabad; my home city and Pune; the city where I work currently. Not surprisingly, the feedback I received from both the cities was not too different.

Excessive Non-Teaching Duties: Apart from teaching, all the government school teachers are assigned non-teaching work such as conducting census survey; facilitate polling during elections and various other activities which they have to compulsorily abide. It creates a lot of pressure on the teachers, a substantial amount of time is wasted in non-teaching work that affects the quality of education of the students as schools remains closed and even-if the schools are working, no classes are conducted.

Teacher Absenteeism: P Sainath, a renowned journalist in his famous book ‘Everybody loves a good drought’ had referred to government schools as Schools without Teachers. The UNESCO’s International Institute of Educational Planning study on corruption in education says that 25% teacher absenteeism in India is among the highest in the world. Most of the time the government school teachers are either in involved in non-teaching work of the Government or absent from the schools. Lack of accountability is a critical reason for the failure of public schools and also falling teaching standards.

Inefficient Special training programmes: A municipal school principal from Ahmedabad says that Government has launched Special training programmes for children who had dropped-out of schools or never had a chance to go to school. The programme promises free transportation to the students but most schools has no provision for providing free transportation. Most teachers have to walk their students to their home and back, especially among girls. It has resulted in teachers getting frustrated as their work is increased manifold affecting the quality of the programme.

Lack of Infrastructure facilities: An average government school in India can be pictured as an old dilapidated building, classrooms with broken windows, wrecked chairs and unhygienic toilets, if they are fortunate enough to have one. A school teacher in Ahmedabad revealed that their school does have separate toilets for boys and girls and hence most girls do not feel comfortable in attending the school. A school teacher in Pune on a condition to maintain anonymity revealed that their school had submitted a request for 20 computers for the school, they did receive 20 computer but 17 of which never worked.

Incompetent teacher: Pune Municipal Corporation initiated 30 English medium government schools but most of the teachers in these schools were transferred from the existing regional language schools. These teachers are not competent to teach in English medium school as their own education has been in regional language schools and they have always taught in regional language schools. It has highly affected the quality of education in these schools.

Lack of Capacity building initiatives: The world is changing fast and the education system needs to keep up the pace but the government schools are still teaching age-old curriculums and methods. Capacity building for teachers is required so that they can cope-up with the current trends and adapt teaching methods that would keep the students motivated and interested in the studies and make the best of their education.

Lack of support from the families of students: All the government school officials I interacted-with shared this feedback that they face a tough time seeking the support of families of the students. Most parents doesn’t allow their daughters to continue their education after pre-primary or primary level whereas the drop-out ratio amongst boys increases manifold during high school as the parents want their sons to take-up a job and earn money for the family. Due to lack of support from the family, it becomes a very difficult task for the teachers to keep the students motivated in studies. Understanding the role of child labour issues and its interaction with the education system is a critical challenge that needs to be addressed.

The role of Teachers is most important in realizing the goal of imparting quality education. Massive Teacher training programmes should be conducted, non-teaching government tasks should not be assigned to the teachers, a strict monitoring mechanism should be devised, infrastructural development of schools and awareness campaign for the parents of students in government schools should be conducted.

India has undoubtedly done a great job in enrolling a majority of the children in schools but now the challenge is to keep the drop-out ratio to the minimum and impart quality education to these kids that would lead them to a dignified employment in the future.

References:

Development Central

Teachers & the Quality of education in Government schools in India

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