Selection of quality teachers

Assam Education Minister Ranoj Pegu has made a very significant announcement on Friday that Classes XI and XII will soon be removed from the colleges and that the Higher Secondary schools of the state will have all three streams – Arts, Science and Commerce. He has also stated that the education system of the state was heading for what he described as a massive overhaul under the New Education Policy, 2020. Abolishing Classes XI and XII from colleges will create a lot of space in the degree colleges to expand the scope and facility for imparting degree-level education across the state. Simultaneously, however, transferring Classes XI and XII to the Higher Secondary schools will have different implications in different places. There are several Higher Secondary schools across the state where the number of students is very low; in some schools, more teachers are being paid to teach in the HS classes than the total number of students in both the classes combined. According to the Education Minister, since Classes XI and XII will be only in Higher Secondary schools, as such the existing Higher Secondary schools will get a major boost in their infrastructure. The minister has also said that the government will soon also upgrade some of the existing High Schools to Higher Secondary schools. Since Higher Secondary schools will soon have all three streams, such creation of better and new infrastructure is a must. Simultaneously, the creation of new posts and recruitment of new teachers will also follow. The government has already started the development of infrastructure in higher secondary schools and the recruitment of more teachers. Those Higher Secondary schools which have attained 75 years or more will get Rs 3 crore for the development of their infrastructure. The other Higher Secondary schools will also get their infrastructure improved in a phased manner. It is at this point that the Education Minister requires taking a serious call on teachers – both the existing ones and those who will be recruited. The selection of teachers is a difficult task, and the selection of good teachers is even more difficult. There is not much choice before the government because the available candidates are all products of the existing education system which has failed to produce graduates and post-graduates who are fit to be teachers. Teaching is not just a noble profession, but also one which requires a lot of human touches. Marks obtained at the graduation and post-graduation levels alone cannot be the criterion for the selection of teachers. Persons engaged in teaching should have several positive qualities. A good and effective teacher has to possess good communication skills, must be able to empathize with students, must be creative, possess interpersonal skills, must be fair and unbiased, passionate and motivating, be an active listener, be punctual, honest and reliable, must be willing to learn, have organizational skills, and have respect for ethics and dignity. It is a tough job selecting good teachers in the existing education environment where several college teachers have been drawing huge sums as salaries on the strength of doctorate and other degrees from fake and dubious universities and institutions. There have been instances of persons obtaining duplicate and forged mark sheets too. Another aspect of Higher Secondary teachers is the recent absorption of teachers of the erstwhile junior colleges. Most of these teachers have been appointed as 'tutors' with a fixed pay which is less than that of a contractual peon or chowkidar despite having university degrees and even PhD degrees just because they do not possess B Ed certificates. As the government has decided to merge the erstwhile junior colleges with nearby High Schools and Higher Secondary schools, teachers who have been with the junior colleges for several years – some even for two decades or more – will now have to serve alongside peons and chowkidars who draw two to three times the so-called salary being given to them. The issue of these teachers, which was kept hanging by the erstwhile Congress of Tarun Gogoi could have been amicably resolved by the Sarbananda Sonowal government. The present government has got an opportunity to set things right. Moreover, this is also probably the right time to conduct a thorough inquiry into the allegations of persons serving as teachers on the strength fake certificates, and degrees and PhDs from dubious universities. It is common knowledge that several persons are serving in colleges across Assam who had fared very poorly in Higher Secondary and Degree levels in institutions in Assam had obtained first-class post-graduate degrees from dubious universities outside the region. It is commonsense that such teachers cannot shape young minds in the manner the government desires.