Anyway, at one point, she asked me a seemingly trivial question in chemistry and she was surprised at the ease of the solution. She later told me that her teacher told her that this is "high-level" and she cannot solve it. I am surprised because all that the question demanded was an understanding of the mole concept. A few other anecdotes from her and my own experience of the Indian education system lead me to a disturbing conclusion: The system is decaying, and it is decaying fast, and we are running out of time, and it won't fix itself, and they are not really bothered!
My sister has a good theory about why the senior secondary teachers suck at their job. Let me paraphrase her:
Most of the class XI/XII syllabus is "irritating" and requires sound fundamentals to grasp the subject. Most teachers prefer to teach class X-and-below because it is "very easy" in comparison to senior classes and students hardly ask (or are encouraged to ask) "difficult" questions.
The few who actually manage to master the syllabus never return to teaching because there are greener pastures for such people. So, there is a void created and this void gets filled with sub-standard (or, as she said, "bekar") teachers.
To think of it, she makes perfect sense.
Going through her NCERT books, I realised that class XI/XII is indeed demanding (and rightly so!). To teach the thousands of these students, we need teachers of the very best calibre and it seems not forthcoming. You know that the system is rotting when your teachers advise the parents to arrange for "coaching", even for basic school syllabi; when the school lets a professional coaching institute "counsel" the students and for all their queries, there seems to only one answer - Jay E Eee. (After the counselling session, the coaching institute offered the students a discount on their JEE-coaching program.)
While Pranab Mukherjee is busy alloting thousands of crores towards education, I hope he realises that there are serious problems with the Indian education system that cannot be solved by pumping-in cash. Perhaps, we need a revamped pedagogy - one which understands the changing needs of the students while still able to deliver quality input.
The IITs face a somewhat similar crunch - 20-30% shortage of faculty. But thankfully, they are not appointing bekar professors (or so I'd like to believe). There was/is an attempt, though, to bring in reservations in the faculty, which would undoubtedly lead to a compromise of merit. Last I heard, the IITs managed to deflect the issue for the time being but Sibal was vociferous in claiming that "IITs should learn to live with faculty reservation". Pure bullshit.
So, Pranab dada giving the IITs 2000-odd crores is great news but it will hardly solve any of the fundamental problems that plague the IITs - and there are enough and more. (If you a new joinee to IIT - too bad I am squashing your dreams so soon :-) some of my other posts might offer solace!)
I leave you with a question that often bewilders me:
Why does India not have a network of world-class government high schools which attract and train the best minds in the country? And how come we have the world-class IITs and IIMs without a sound higher-edu foundation in the system?
17 comments:
Are these senior secondary teachers even aware that they have the responsibility of changing the education system n India? Many problems can be solved if they realize that.
I think you can argue that we have the IITs and the IIms for purely statistical reasons... that is, in a country with a billion people, and a ridiculous percentage of them are college-age, having an institution that picks the top 3-4000 of them would inevitably make for something "world class". (An adjective that I have always considered to be inappropriate, by the way.)
I feel your sister is absolutely right!!! There are greener pastures for people who master the syllabus.So they are hardly a few people who choose teaching as their profession.Quality of education is what matters and this cannot be achieved by merely pumping cash as you said.All we can get by pumping in cash is just good teaching equipment but not good teachers.The needs of the students change from time to time.Hope Pranab understands the same.
@Uss: Even if they did realise what incentive do they have to do so? Govt teachers are paid a measly amount. Good teachers are few and rare. Guess we must have realised that by now after IIT M :)
Nice post by the way :)
Lots of problems man. Fundamental mind set of people towards education needs to change. I would not hesitate to blame the examinations for this. If an MSc fellow aims at learning properly, rather than passing the examinations in flying colors by studying questions from previous years' papers, he/she can do a good job as a 11th/12th std teacher. This is the only solution to revamping pedagogy. Interviews/presentations etc., should replace the current exam system of evaluation, where ever possible.
I also feel 11th, 12th std students are fed in with a lot of information. An MIT undergraduate enters the school with lesser knowledge than an IIT undergraduate.
To answer your second question, it's the students that make IITs world class. There is quite a bit of their self-effort involved in strengthening their fundamentals.
On the ending note, JEE has done a lot of harm to the secondary education. Any good/challenging concept is branded as JEE concept and hence-not-to-be-dealt-in-school, and to-be-studied-at-coaching-insti concept, exposing the inherent symbiotic relationship between schools and coaching institutes (atleast over the past 10 yrs)prevailing in the system. And funnily, I hear school teachers blaming the coaching institutes for all that is not well.
You might want to read this:
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/325/5937/126
tell me if you cant access it, will send you the pdf.
Agreed that teachers aren't too great and that questioning is not supported or encouraged rather at times punished, but the important point here is that very few people desire to come back to academics to teach. Unless teaching as a profession can be made attractive enough, it would not be able to get the best minds.
I was talking to a neighbour yesterday and she made me aware of the appalling pays at her college. Even call centre people make more money than that! So we need to see, where is the money that is being pumped in being spent - for although we complain about the education system in India, little do we realise that barely 10% make it to higher education.
@ aniket, that's a good point. Agree that teaching job has become very mechanical, teachers fail to see the larger picture.
@rambling perfectionist - Yes, the sheer numbers cloud the reality.
@ Archana, true. money!= quality.
@ Sarvesh, the _aniket_ is not Uss, it is Mamme :-)
@ Jimmy. Cannot agree more with you. Brilliant insight. Thanks.
@ Dharik - it requires registration. I shall try from insti - in a week's time.
@ Bakarbaaz
What you say (people not wanting to join teaching) is true about high school education. But I think it's different about atleast the IITs - I know quite a few friends who are pursuing PhDs and want to get into teaching/research as a profession (including two of the people who have commented here!)
We have world class IITs becoz there are some 4k students who manage to get the fundas right even without getting good teachers in 11th/12th and we have IIMs(which are not world class according to me) bcoz students cmng out of IITs and other reputed Eng colleges need a place to pursue postgrad.
@Lays : My bad :P As i said incentive to teach at school level is missing. Even if a person is passionate about teaching,the number of people who consider money as the main incentive far exceeds the people who like teaching. Yeah teaching at colleges is different with the new pay commission rulings. Still the situatino needs to be improved drastically in both. On a postive note, the professors at IIM C are awesome :) Truly committed and passionate about their subject :)
You have raised a very important question and I see that not many people have seen your reference to high quality "government school". I had this interesting conversation with my uncle on primary education. The argument was that privatisation of primary education has affected the education system, as
1) Higher salaries have dissuaded teachers away from government sector to private schools.
2) Quality of education in most cases is competition driven and marks oriented (no playground,labs etc). Lack of a proper regulatory authority is letting these schools of the hook.
3) Teachers in such schools are being forced to show results and are not evaluated on their teaching abilities, which has affected the quality of teaching at primary levels.
4) Corruption of the bureacracy has affected the government schools in developing.
@ Gaurav, Fair enough - agree with you on the IITs - the sheer numbers. IIMs - it's again filled with IIT/BITS/NIT folks. So ya!
@ Sarvesh, That's great news. Must be a welcome break after 4 years of IITM! And I agree with you about school teachers, it is a thankless, non-glamorous, unexciting, low-paying job.
@ Anon, I think you have hit the nail on the head. Though I am unsure if there are good teachers even at private schools. You correctly point out that the stress on overall holistic development is not enough and its a marks-mad society.
Great post. By reading all these comments I began to ponder over the scenario when something struck me. Instead of us cribbing about the system have we ever decided to plunge into the action by deciding to take up the teaching profession? Most of us are all awed by the lucrative salaries that lay in the management sector and tend to choose those lines of work rather than be a teacher. How many of the M.Techs or Ph.Ds actually want to join the teaching profession letting go of the high yielding MNC jobs?
I am not aiming these comments at any one and I myself dont fancy being a teacher.
The system needs a renaissance, very much true, and I guess it is the responsibility of us to actually try something.
P.S: Cool blog bro. Stumbled upon it when I clicked on a link posted by your sis.
Beautiful Analysis though many seemed to have been heard somewhere.@ the final statement, INDIA can boast of an amazing "Coaching-Center" Infrastructure.
And @ someone who said that the top 4k who get to learn fundas properly, please see line 1 ;)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/Maam-the-textbook-has-changed/articleshow/5060338.cms
Check out. As they say, 'A ray of hope, in these rather dark times'
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