ROLE OF TEACHERS TO MAKE INDIA A DEVELOPED COUNTRY 

 

Journey of 1.4 billion country from a developing to a developed nation by 2047 (as is in the air) is not going to be a cake walk. This arduous journey has to meander through its classrooms, laboratories, workshops, playgrounds of schools, colleges and other institutions of higher learning as no nation can fully develop if her citizens do not experience holistic growth. Roads, flyovers, bridges, railways and airports, skyscrapers, space explorations, military preparedness etc. are undoubtedly strong indicators of development and we are doing extremely well but the increase in per capita income is the tallest indicator of development where we are lagging far behind in comparison to the other developed or developing nations.

Education opens new vistas of opportunities in life. It equips them to to take considered decisions in their day-to-day life. It instills scientific temper through which they do innovations and new discoveries. Our contribution to the world of discoveries and innovations is extremely minimal. In this direction we are yet to take long and fast strides.

For this, our teachers will have to shoulder a great responsibility of being nation builders. They need to understand their role fully well. They should ensure that all students under their care experience holistic growth and construct their knowledge through application of mind and exploration of facts through experimentation.

All teachers should be the Masters of their subjects. They must fully understand the concepts contained in the curriculum and how they are to be transacted. There is urgent need to make our day-to-day classroom curricular transactions joyful, interactive, story based, art- music- and- sports -integrated. Teachers need to explore interdisciplinary linkages while teaching their own subjects. Besides, they need to have a deep sense of pride in being a nation builder for which a lot of dedication and devotion is warranted. 

This will happen only if the teachers are self-inspired and motivated. For this, the appointment of capable teachers, their salaries and working conditions, their promotional avenues are required to be of very high standards.

The overall picture of our schooling system is not much encouraging. There are approximately 25 crore school going students in India and out of them 5 crores do not possess the basic skills of reading, writing and numeracy. These 5 crore students fail to solve the problems pertaining to their junior classes/grades. The surveys conducted at national level by NCERT with regard to Learning Achievement Tests in junior classes were highly disappointing.

 

The following reasons can be subscribed to this scenario:

 

1.    Our teachers focus on the coverage of syllabus and do not use the prescribed syllabus as a tool to achieve class specific/subject specific learning outcomes.

2.    The testing of desired learning outcomes is still being done through outdated techniques. There is an urgent need to test certain learning outcomes through one-to-one interaction between the teacher and the taught in which teacher personally makes observations about the skills acquired by her students in the targeted learning outcomes in all subjects and classes.

3.    There is hardly any remediation plan in place for such students who due to some reasons lag behind in basic foundational literacy and numeracy.

 

4.    The pedagogical practices in majority of the rural schools are outdated. Technology has yet to illuminate our rural schools. Simply providing ICT infrastructure to schools will not solve our problems until and unless it is utilized effectively to achieve the desired learning outcomes.

5.    Four years back I started testing the learning outcomes of students of Classes II and III randomly in English and Math. There is a learning outcome in Classes I and II that each child will understand the given instructions to her/him in English and the child performs that act as per the command of instruction. For example, if you say: sit down, child sits down and if you say: go and touch the wall, child goes and touches. So, I started, giving instructions to them and all of them understood my instructions and performed the acts commanded by me. It meant that they had achieved this particular learning outcome. Then I started the testing of another learning outcome. It was: to speak a few sentences about their immediate surroundings-like classroom, school etc. In this case they were unable to speak even a few words. It showed that they had not achieved this learning outcome. In Math they failed to measure the length of a table with their handspan.

Now these learning outcomes which I have talked about, do not require any textbook. A competent teacher can create opportunities in the classrooms for the students where they listen to their teacher or to their peers and speak/act accordingly. This is not happening in our classrooms.

6.    If our students do not acquire linguistic proficiency during primary classes, it becomes very difficult for them to develop concepts in Mathematics, Science and even Social Science at later stages. Knowledge of numeracy is also equally significant during initial years. A lot of attention is now being paid by schools and administrators for the improvement of FLN (Foundational Literacy and Numeracy) as has been very strongly advocated by NEP 2020.This needs to be given top priority by school administrators and teachers.

Our motherland will be a developed nation by 2047 only if literacy rate becomes 100% and poverty gets totally abolished. Education is the only tool through which it could be achieved. Our schools must ensure holistic development of each and every child as per her/his ability. Vocational training to students needs to be made compulsory like Math and Science so that they do not race unsuccessfully to get white collar jobs which are going to reduce considerably due to the intervention of Artificial Intelligence. Thirdly the allocation of budget for education both at state and Centre level must be given considerable hike. Fourthly the success of a teacher should be measured on the basis of percentage of achievement of Learning Outcomes of students taught by her or him and not on the basis of mere pass percentages. Let’s make collectively make our country a developed nation.

 

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