The teachers are the torch bearers who pass on the knowledge, culture, traditions, language and technology to the next generation and it is a continuous cycle. The teachers have the job of dealing with the maturing children, it is the toughest job as humans are not machines. The children whose parents are educated, mostly do get lot of supervision and support at home. In this circumstance some part of guidance comes from parents and some part does come from school. There are some children (Urban\semi urban) who attend private tuition, get home work supervision, class dairy check, on-line education support and most importantly motivation. The other set of students are 'first generation' school goers who usually do no get as much support as enjoyed by other children as they depend only on supervision and support at school. The first generation school goers are those children who are the first to get formal education among their family members. The family where none has gone through formal education, how much do they understand the value of education, if they value then how much they can understand the aims and mechanisms of education. This is to briefly understand the kinds of students we have in our country. How much effort do the teachers have to put on first generation school goers. There was an enrollment program where an Educationist had to speak with a parent. The activist asked the parent as to why he does not send his child to school. The parent questioned what can a child get by attending the school. The perception of wage workers is usually an immediate remuneration or return, how can a teacher or an education activist convince this parent. And even if we get 100% enrollment, how do we maintain the quality of education. How do we analyze and design the training and support mechanism for these teachers to meet the expectation.
How do we recognize the efforts of the teachers. There are thousands of teachers who work out to the core of their energy and capacity. Let us visualize a day in a teachers' life. This is a lady teacher in uttarakhand state who travels every day to school. She boards the bus to travel 16 km through the hills and again trek through the hills for around 2 km. She enjoys her work and engages with students, parents and community at village government school. She is happy travelling and engaging and also happy with the salary she earns. Apart from internal motivation what other motivation and recognition does she gets at least say annually. Usually in rural regions there is much need to support children. Many of the teachers do put the effort, first by travelling to the challenging places and second through teaching.
There are some schools with a 'single teacher' handling job of a principal as well as teacher for 5 grades. Usually these schools can have pupil strength of 10 to 70 including all the grades. These school teachers are usually deprived of In-service training, they face difficulties in claiming leaves for personal requirements. Its very easy to challenge rural government school teachers in terms of quality of education. On the other hand these teachers need lot of moral support as well as recognition.
How do we recognize the efforts of the teachers. There are thousands of teachers who work out to the core of their energy and capacity. Let us visualize a day in a teachers' life. This is a lady teacher in uttarakhand state who travels every day to school. She boards the bus to travel 16 km through the hills and again trek through the hills for around 2 km. She enjoys her work and engages with students, parents and community at village government school. She is happy travelling and engaging and also happy with the salary she earns. Apart from internal motivation what other motivation and recognition does she gets at least say annually. Usually in rural regions there is much need to support children. Many of the teachers do put the effort, first by travelling to the challenging places and second through teaching.
There are some schools with a 'single teacher' handling job of a principal as well as teacher for 5 grades. Usually these schools can have pupil strength of 10 to 70 including all the grades. These school teachers are usually deprived of In-service training, they face difficulties in claiming leaves for personal requirements. Its very easy to challenge rural government school teachers in terms of quality of education. On the other hand these teachers need lot of moral support as well as recognition.
If we look at MNC companies' culture there is good pattern of employee recognition. Thus it is highly advisable that in lines of teacher accountability initiatives we should also have recognition initiatives. The initiatives like best teacher award at block level, which could be monthly, quarterly, yearly. And also awards such as best school award in respect to discipline, infrastructure, sustainable initiatives and so on.
Let us respect our fellow citizens. Let us strive for participatory democracy, freedom is not free.
'Being Informed and inform everyone'.
Think moral. Change is you...