“Good teachers are costly, but bad teachers cost more” - Bob Talbert. Teachers day is celebrated colorfully in India on 5th September each year in India. The day is the birth day of one of the most celebrated teachers Dr S Radhakrishnan. The day is commonly observed in various governmental as well nongovernmental ceremonial functions where teachers are praised; students deliver various lectures admiring their teachers and Ministers & leaders talk big things about teachers and education. On this auspicious day many eminent teachers are awarded National Teachers’ Awards. Apart from observing the day with these common aspects, there is crying need to enlighten pain, ecstasy, befuddlement and irritation to which the teachers at large are subjected. Undoubtedly no or less attention so long given to these pending issues of teaching community has cost India a lot, a single and decisive result of which is that today India is the only country in world that is near developed or developing country in economics front without having developed education system. The result is based on reliable facts and figures of united nation organization. Indian rank is very poor on human development index in the world. It ranked 141 out of 173 countries in the overall education index in the year 2000. In Human Development Index in 2001 India ranked 127 out of 175 countries with China and Vietnam respectively at 104th and 109th position. India belongs to “Information Poor” group in the world. Only three India universities have got place in first 500 universities in the world whereas there are more than 15 such Chinese universities. The current position of our country is after all not a result of sustainable developmental policy but may be of some political priority only. Improved human resources generation is accepted over the whole of world as one of the sound strategies for competitive advantages in the age of globalization. Yet then India has miserably failed to adapt to this essential requirement of sustainable development even now, even though it became a global partner in globalized process way back in 1990. Need of the hour is to give highest priority to improve human resources vis a vis education sectors. In coming age of knowledge economy, knowledge will be main source of power to which human resources will play the key role. India can not and should not ignore this basic rule of developing India in changed scenario. Is it inevitable to ignore this rule of development while observing teachers’ day? Improved human resources amount to improving both quality and quantity. Over the years and after independence, quality of Indian education system in general has not improved with the pace of time. One of the main attributes of maintaining and improving quality education is the availability of quality teachers. A World Bank Research found that “Higher academic performance can be promoted by evaluating the quality of teaching and research.” Once upon a time Indian teaching community was full of pioneers like Rajarshi S Radhakrishnan, Acharya J C Bose, Sir C V Raman, Acahrya S N Bose and Dr, M N Saha. Today we have hardly teachers of those statures. In reality, today teaching profession has become out of getting the assignment “by chance” rather than “by choice.” Young minds should not be blamed for this. World is changing. Chang is the law of nature. Today world is materialistic. Policy must change to adapt the changed world. Teaching profession in India is not only mostly under paid but also without appreciable status. Huge gaps in pay and perks exist at different equivalent positions of government and institutes/universities viz that between a fresh IAS officer and a Lecturer, between a Secretary and a full Professor, and between Chief Secretary and Vice Chancellor. No remedial measure is found in the currently accepted sixth pay commission even though the current central government is headed by a one time teacher, Dr Manomohan Singh. Therefore teaching profession is made unattractive to meritorious young mind by national wrong policies over the years. Moreover a few those who are joining this noble profession of teaching “by choice” are even hardly appreciated in society, and by the process they become gradually de motivated. The unappreciation comes from different direct or indirect ways. Vice chancellors and Directors are often appointed by political choice, Secretaries of human resources departments are still appointed not from teachers but from IAS officers and choices of appointment in high positions of the profession are mostly the process of rejection rather than process of selection. In no terms these are the facts of teaching profession in India for which meritorious bright students often choose the teaching profession in aboard and not in India. The stated Indian wrong policy of education needs immediate careful readdressing for attraction and retention of the brightest young minds in the teaching profession for the improved human resource generation in India. In recent past decades, the Government of India is in process of cutting the higher education budget. Such action is believed to affect science and technological education in India, and is supposed to augment already existing deteriorating conditions of engineering and medical colleges, institutes and universities To meet with the financial gap between demand and supply of the colleges, institutes and universities caused by the reduced allocation, the institutes have been advised to introduce self-revenue generation scheme. Besides, the Government is encouraging establishment of private colleges and universities as possible replacement of state founded institutes. There may be so many reasons, so many arguments for budget cut of higher education, and there may be so many replacements for state funding institutes; but the consequences of budget cut may be alarming. Truly speaking, the share of total education in total allocation and that of only higher education in allocation of education are both on decline trend since fourth plan period to eighth plain period. It is not a new phenomenon and cannot be linked with the present Government only. This is causing public expenditure on education to trail over times and is seriously affecting infrastructure development and facilities causing quality of education to degrade. The problem is compounded further due to gradual increase in enrolment ratio and overall population growth. The commutative effect is the lowering of the quality of Indian education as evident from the decline trend of foreign students’ enrolment in India. Can India continue with this trend and at the same time generate improved human resources? It is believed this question is not irrevelent on a teachers’ day and from a teacher. The quantitative axis of improving human resource generation in India has an acute problem associated with population growth whose effect is the increase in gross enrolment ratio. This ratio expressed as a percentage of the population in only tertiary education in India had jumped from 4.9% in 1970 to 6.5% in 1995. Again it does not mean that generation of human resources is significant in India. In 1990, the total number of scientist and engineers per million population was 2807, 1665, 158, 3317 and 109 respectively in the Developed countries, the Europe, the Developing countries, USA and India. This reflects the poor position of India. India needs to generate improved human resources by opening more and more colleges and universities. Analysis of the technical education will be relevant as in recent past private investment to increase man power generation in technical education has been increased manifold in India. India ranks below even most developing countries in terms of enrolment per 100,000 inhabitants. Out of several other parameters behind such a poor position, one was the non-availability of higher education institutes. With private participation, the opportunities of higher studies increases, and this may increase the enrolment figure comparable to other developing countries. This is supplemented by a statistics of West Bengal. Before addition of about 45 private engineering colleges in W B in recent years, out of about 1,00,000 students appearing for the joint entrance examination only about 5500 could make it. In such a scenario private investment is most welcome. Adam Smith said, “ it is not from the benevolence of the butcher .. or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Here lie all theories of investment by private sectors. Profit or in gentle word return on investment as often told in the education sectors, is the ultimate motive. The profit motive has natural attraction for quality degradation. Low teacher-student ratio of the existing private institutes in general has this reflection. However profit only motive is dangerous and counter productive in education sectors. As a consequence of ever-increasing marketization of higher education, the basic disciplines like physics, chemistry, mathematics, languages, philosophy, history and geography etc are not offered in the private institutes and universities. The private investment still is oriented to courses of market demand. This will create an imbalance in the higher education system. In India most of the private engineering colleges offer courses in Computer, Electronics and Information Technology; and hardly mother engineering like mechanical, electrical, civil etc. The imbalance so created will have adverse effect in future both in terms of availability of engineers at proportional level and in related expertise & development. A report of UNESCO in 200 said, “ …the private (for profit) sector has problems establishing quality programs that address anything other than short-term market driven needs.” The high tuition fees of higher education in private sectors will encourage only affordable societies to opt for. The meritorious poor students will not benefit from higher education opportunities offered by the private institutes. Is it creating a further gap between haves and haves not in higher education? Generating scope for higher education for affordable students at the costs of non-affordable but meritorious students is bound to cast poor figure on quality on outputs and cause poor productivity. All India Council for Technical Education, the main authority assigned by the government of India should apply its mind to look into theses issues for equitable and sustainable and affordable improved human resources in technical education, In the same spirit and means, the University Grants Commission has a role to look into other educational areas. Today our country needs a national “transformation process that is revolutionary in result, but evolutionary in execution” for improved human resource generation both in quality and quantity. The execution of this basic and foremost need for national development should the main focus of teachers’ day to make it a purposeful ceremony. “Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth” - Helen Caldic
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 14:32:12 +0000
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