Challenges of being a teacher
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Challenges of being a teacher

Post by on Monday, November 1, 2021

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Education illuminates a candle of modesty in our inner world that wipes out obscurity of our heart and head and leads us to the ultimate goal of life. Education is teaching and learning skills, values and knowledge. In Jammu and Kashmir, there is a considerable progress in education sector by opening schools in every nook and corner which long ago was a dream too hard to accomplish.

 

Since teachers role is pivotal in this whole process of education, his position and role becomes very important. A teacher's role is not merely to teach the students how to read a book, how to collect and store information and how to stuff his mind with facts. Today computers and technology can do it much more accurately. The teachers’ prime duty is to teach the student how to use the knowledge for the further advances in knowledge and improvement and ennoblement of individual and individual life.

 

For this purpose the teacher will have to lead by example and not by percept alone. Our teachers in government sector are meritorious and well equipped with professional degrees of teaching. Besides this, the education department also leaves no stone unturned for their training purposes but still the performance of the teachers working in government sector seems very deplorable as is evident from their results every year.

 

Every time we talk of the poor performance of the government schools, it is a teacher who is taken as the prime culprit .In fact the onus lies with the teacher and consequently it is a teacher who shares greater amount of responsibility. It has been seen that most of the time, public and official wrath strikes a teacher at the end of the academic session particularly after the declaration of board results whereas s/he struggles very hard to highlight his problems throughout the year.

 

After the end of the academic session, teachers are subjected to transfer and re adjustment based upon the norms fixed by the department with the intention to infuse new energy among the teachers besides fulfilling the need of teachers at appropriate places. The wrong implementation of transfer policy has lead to the seemingly shortage of teachers at some places and heaping up at many places.

 

It is an admitted fact that the irrational distribution of staff is one of the main problems facing the school education department. There is a dire need to take necessary measures to help the department in the rationalization process, as it is the single factor that has rotten the system from within. Presently, rationalization of the staff in government schools has become indispensable for the successful functioning of the ailing government education system.

 

There are many teachers who are eager to volunteer on priority basis to work in needy schools for a fixed time period so that the initiative of rationalization of staff gets a jump start. It is pertinent to mention that in the past an initiative was taken by some CEOs in their respective districts but it proved a big flop because of the bureaucratic and political interference. In order to make the concept of rationalization of the staff a reality, our teacher community along with their strong forums in cooperation with the community needs to launch a comprehensive campaign that would pressurize the government to take necessary steps for the betterment of our education system.

 

The teachers are very much eager to serve the poor children enrolled in our school education department but it needs the support and cooperation of various stake holders including the bureaucracy, political leaders and the community. Another important issue is too much involvement of teachers in non-academic activities such as election duty, census, and various other governmental exams and surveys. Besides these, some of the teachers are being permanently deputed to other departments that add severity to the ailing education system.

 

Another vital issue which is worth mentioning is the issue of lethargy accrued in some teachers who continue to use old and outdated methodologies and are resistant to change. Despite being trained through rigorous training programmes, their pessimistic attitude persists and they continue to spread it to the young and energetic ones who are otherwise enthusiastic to bring in fresh hope in the ailing education system. Proper training of teachers and strict implementation of already existing accountability mechanisms will help to solve this problem to a great extent.

 

Being a teacher in the present education system is a challenge and sincere efforts are needed to root out menace of corruption and nepotism. Every stake holder needs to think and act for the betterment of our education system so that the mission of dissemination of quality education can be easily realized.

 

There is a need for a change both at the policy level and at administration level so that the position of a teacher is restored back and our derailed system of education gets back on track. Teachers need to organize their efforts for sustained and effective implementation of already existing laws so that the poor children studying in our government schools are saved from ruination.

 

(The author is a Teacher by Profession. He can be reached at bilal43@gamil.com)

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