Why is teaching considered a last resort option?
Profession attractiveness: In our country, not many people look forward to becoming school teachers while evaluating their career choices and teaching would be their last resort option. There are multiple reasons for students not choosing to teach as a career option. Compensation: Teaching is one of the lowest paid white-collar jobs, far less than management consultants, software engineers, and investment bankers. Their salary is not sufficient to lead a decent lifestyle, so they resort to other methods such as taking up tuitions. Rewards are also not linked to performance. Career growth: There’s no professional environment for teachers to share their knowledge or ideas. Opportunities provided for career progression are less. For instance, promotion to a principal would be based on experience rather than on performance. Respect: Teaching has lost its respect and aura it once had. Since there is no respect or dignity for the teaching profession, recruiting high-quality talent becomes difficult. Since the teaching quality is low, there is the loss of respect for the teaching profession. This vicious cycle gets difficult to break because top talent refuses to enter this profession. Quality of teachers Quality of teachers is very crucial in shaping the future of young minds. Often in most of the government schools, due to the lack of teachers, the same teacher teaches all the subjects. Many states try to fill this gap by recruiting under-qualified teachers on a contract basis. Lack of good quality teaching can be owed to many reasons in the entire process of recruitment, pre-service, and in-service training. Recruitment: Teaching is not a preferred option and hence it fails to attract top talent of the country. Countries like Sweden recruit teachers only from top one-third colleges, but this is not the case in our country. Hence, most of the people who enter this profession are not academically bright. Pre-service training: Owing to a shortage of faculty, the quality of training in teacher education institutions such as DIET is poor. This is evident from the low pass-percentage in Teacher Eligibility Test. The courses lack rigor and have only been recently revamped to include longer practical training. In-service training: There are no continuous professional development opportunities provided for teachers. Under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, teachers are eligible to receive 20 days of annual training. But, the data released by District Information System for Education (DISE) for 2013-14 shows that only 31.45 percent of all government school teachers received training in the previous year, down from 47.01 percent as compared to the last two years. It is almost non-existent in the unaided private schools with only 3.32 percent of teachers reported to have received any training All these factors lead to the poor professional development of teachers, thereby impacting their quality of teaching. Since there is a dire need for quality in our education system, there is a strong need to attract and retain a talented workforce to meet our future developmental goals. Para-Teachers in govt schools – Is this a demotivator? The term para-teacher could be defined as teachers appointed on contract basis in primary and upper primary schools on terms different from those of teacher recruitment for regular cadre1. PUC (pre-university course) is the minimum qualification required for para-teachers, and it’s even lower in Rajasthan (VIII standard). The Para Teacher schemes have three aspects. Firstly, recruiting Para Teachers helps in reducing the PTR. Due to increase in student enrolment and retirement of teachers, vacancies exist in schools and Para Teachers are recruited to fill vacant positions. Secondly, according to government norms, certain schools in tribal and rural areas do not qualify for primary schools. Since the children in these areas do not have access to primary schools within a kilometer radius and employing regular teachers in these areas is not financially viable, para teachers from the community are recruited at lower salaries. Thirdly, there are a considerable number of single teacher government schools. Para teacher recruitment increases the number of teachers in such schools. The number of para teachers recruited is increasing, mainly in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, and to some extent in Karnataka. The terms and process of para teacher recruitment differ from state to state. Certain states, such as Bihar, recruit them on a permanent tenure, without having to meet the same academic or training qualifications as regular teachers2. Chhattisgarh gives 5-7 years of time for them to qualify in B. Ed and then provides them a permanent position. The idea of Para Teachers has helped states in meeting the requirement of teachers to cope with raising enrolment of students in schools without having to increase finances greatly. Few argue that the para-teachers program has helped lower the PTR and reduce the number of single-teacher schools at an affordable cost. But this seems to be a short-term solution. Because of lower educational qualifications and lack of mandatory professional training by the government after recruitment, except in Maharashtra and Gujarat, their quality of teaching is perceived to be poor.
HARI KAKARLA