Teachers in the New Education Thrust

Via The Economic Times

With the massive impetus to be given to school education by the passing of the Right to Education Act (despite all its issues) just last month, Teacher’s Day acquires extra significance — not just for the 5 million men and women who teach and impact the 220 million school children of our country every school day — but also for governments, both central and state, for school authorities and organisations and for the parents of all our school-children.

If any of our education policies have to succeed, if the huge increase in investment in education is to bear fruit and if the aspirations of parents to have their children lead a better life are to be realised, then it cannot be just about passing an Act or investing in some schools. It can only happen if teaching and learning take a step-change. These lofty ideals and injection of funds get tested finally only in the daily interactions between a teacher and a child.

The Act itself attempts to do this to some extent when it outlines the responsibilities of a teacher. For example, it talks about the responsibility of a teacher to encourage “learning through activities, discovery and exploration in a child friendly and child-centred manner”. These, at least, are progressive statements aimed to set a direction to how we want learning to happen in our schools.

However, if we really want change to happen, we have to approach the issue differently. All the buzz around school education in the last few months has been about what the government is doing and what schools and are doing. Teachers seem to figure in all this as merely an “important resource”. This will not be enough! The true leaders of this change-process will be teachers. The rest of us — the government, the school authorities/ organisations and the parents — are only going to be important contributors to enable and support these “process-leaders” to succeed.

For teachers, the first step is to have the confidence that they have made progress. The fact is that teachers have played a role in the growth of India’s human resource
potential, which now is so well recognised globally. That said, no teacher can deny the tremendous scope for improvement.

The second step for teachers is to simply decide that they WILL energetically lead the change and reinvention. This would be a positive response to the changing demands from society. It will also help teachers set the agenda. Currently, teachers tend to be overwhelmed by the plethora of advice and instruction they get — everyone seems to know how to do the teaching job!

The third step for teachers is to take charge of their skill and capability enhancement urgently! The trap we must not fall into here is to think of teachers as technicians. teachers, it’s different. While it’s true that there is much in a teacher’s job that is technique-based and can be enhanced by technology, there is so much more that affects teaching-learning in terms of the dynamic interactions that they have with their children.

If teachers can take the lead with the three steps above, what’s the role of the rest of us in the education system — the government, school authorities, education organisations and parents?

First, we must see our role genuinely as enabling teachers.

Second, we can help by asking how we can simplify a teacher’s life so that she can concentrate on her professional purpose — better child-learning.

Finally, as parents, let’s understand that we share a joint responsibility for our child’s learning and development with her teacher.

It’s these kinds of changes in approach, with the teacher as the leader, that can make us achieve our education goals. Last month, through a constitutional Act, we re-committed ourselves to education for every child. Today, let’s also commit to sharing the challenge with 5 million Indians who can make it happen — our school-teachers.

Read the entire article here.

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