Very amusing!

It is a subject of great amusement for me, and I am sure many of my friends who read this may feel the same when certain teachers categorised as good over others and recognised at city, district or national levels on different occasions. Without prejudice against anyone, the most amusing part is that there is no benchmark or standards lay so far which ascertains the good from the bad specially so in a field like education.

Without a proper benchmark or a survey conducted where only children of all schools/colleges through some process to name their best “Gurus” how can any agencies other than the pupil adjudge a teacher from outside. If done it is mostly with vested interests.

It is against this background, I could not stop myself from writing this piece, when I again read in a section of press yesterday about some of the so-called “Best Teachers” being awarded on Teachers Day, September 5. I always wonder who best teachers are. How do they look? How and by whom are they spotted, since it is certainly not by the nomination of students who are the real judges for judging the capabilities of a teacher?

I have from my childhood respected all my teachers alike and felt that everyone has contributed his/her bit in my personality development and skills. My respect still remains the same equally for all of them even after my completing formal studies over 25 years back.

In my schooldays time children gave importance and respect to the masters and not categorising them as first, second and third grade, which unfortunately is the practice on rise and made to imbibe in the new generation students.

We cannot discriminate especially in a profession like teaching. If those who feel can do so of categorising good and bad, they must first launch a campaign to weed out the black sheep, if any, from this noble profession to select the best with the help of students. Until done or until there is a transparent standard to gauge the bright from the dull no one has the right to misguide the society, create indifferent opinions and damage sanctity of a noble profession.

Not only this, such unwanted classifications are a big discouragement to that major sections of teachers who do their work very diligently in urban and rural areas alike and does not pomp and show.

It is a pity and shame to see that most of those who queue up for being recognised on a pious occasion like Teachers Day and other such occasions are Principal’s, Vice-Principals, Vice Chancellor’s or some fortunate teachers and some fortunate because of their influential backgrounds.

A true recognition comes to a teacher if his/her student does well. At least fifty percent performance of a child, if not more, rests on a teacher. So the best award or reward for a true teacher is how well his/her student does in studies and later in life.

The Principal’s and Vice Chancellors are in any case not always from teaching but are a part of the management circle and hence not be included under teacher’s category. It really downgrades those who stand by such recognitions and raises a question mark on the selectors and selection rules. Though not all recognised worthless but because of the lack of visibility of fair chance provided to all teachers alike to prove their worth with student’s opinions/ranking strictly taken into consideration these recognitions appear dubious.

Heads of State, senior government functionaries and eminent personalities should refrain and/or minimise endorsements to such exercise until these are thoroughly transparent and checked for being unbiased coupled with students survey for a partial choice of a particular teacher nominated for an award.

Let the sanity of teachers not be ranked. In fact appreciating teachers be encouraged to make them more dedicated to the students and imbibe new techniques of teaching. Also, appreciation of teachers be done at large and not of any specific person unless otherwise there is a very strong and exceptional case of their performance. Such appreciation thoroughly examined in a transparent way before being made public.

Till this model be adopted the “Best Teachers” recognised the present way be made to undergo a scrutiny post award where the students of their institutions be made to vote against their worthiness. The report of such assessments be made public and be conducted by a government agency with public representation. Though this will not fully, but to a large extent be a sieve to the problem.