Regaining the Glory of Teaching

“Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions”

When a handful of young students are asked about the career that they want to choose when they grow up, the answers are quite unsurprising. Most of the students would either want to become a doctor, engineer, lawyer or an IAS officer. There are hardly any who wish to become a teacher. Why is it so? It’s quite disturbing to come to terms with the fact that teaching, which is undoubtedly the mother of all professions, is often looked as a fallback career in India. Today parents or adults who guide the students urge them to settle down with a career that would offer nothing less than a six-figure salary and a larger than life living. Probably that is why most students want to take up corporate jobs, or work as doctors and engineers. These professions seem more appealing and glamorous with the heavy weighted job titles that they come with like Vice Presidents, CEOs, Senior Analyst, Product Manager and so on. On the other side of the fence a teacher whether he is teaching in a primary school or a degree college is just a teacher. Those days are long gone when a teacher was held in high regard and students would be thankful to their teachers for making them what they are today. So, what are the things that have changed in the past that has led this noble profession to slip to the bottom of the career ladder? Even though the education system in India has witnessed a rapid growth in the past few decades, there is a lack of supply of teachers. If the figures estimated by the Ministry of Human Resource Development are to be believed then our country faces a shortage of more than 12 lakh or 1.2 million teachers. Alas! Such a large vacancy, but not enough people to apply for this noble profession. One of the major reasons for this wide void is the meager salary of a teacher. Even after the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission the salary is not at par with what jobs in IT sector, banking and corporate jobs have to offer. This leads us to another reason why teaching is not taken up by a majority of students. The unattractive salary and fewer perks are not something that a bright student wants to settle with, he looks for options that give him or her opportunities to earn really well. As a result of this, students who have scored low are left to join teaching. Countries like Finland, Belgium, South Korea, Singapore and Japan, which take pride in their education system, have the most talented students as teachers because their payment is excellent. Despite the average pay and relaxed working hours, the best minds do not prefer teaching as there is not much freedom in terms of deciding the curriculum or experimenting with teaching methodologies. In short there is no scope for them to creative and use their minds to get the best out of students. Furthermore, the neglect that the teachers face from the society as well as the education system plays a pivotal role in demoralizing the existing teachers. There are very few opportunities for advancement in career and the performances of a teacher always go unrecognized. This leads them to think very lowly of themselves as well as their profession. As a result, they don’t come across as strong role models for students to follow the same career path or at least develop love and respect for the profession. Sadly, many people and even the students today think that teachers are doing nothing but blindly reading out everything from the textbooks or pasting information available on the internet to impart knowledge to them. In many places it’s true but who is to be blamed for this when the cream of the students are unwilling to join as teachers, unwilling to appreciate the efforts of those teachers who go to extremes to ensure that his student understands well, educational policymakers are not enthusiastic enough to implement ways to lure quality students to the profession and the society is determined to compare it with other more lucrative jobs? Ironically, the country that celebrates the fifth day of Septmeber, the birthday of one of the greatest teachers in India, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, as Teachers’ Day, doesn’t seem too keen on encouraging brilliant young minds to follow his footsteps. And as such the noble profession of teaching is slowly giving way to more lucrative careers, sliding further down the career choices. It’s time we change the perception of teachers by the society and achieve to establish a rational society which Lee Iacocca, a leading American businessman, talks about here – “In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else”. The Companion