India needs to focus on Quality of Teachers to revamp its education system

Fizzing with enthusiasm on Teacher’s Day today, President of Association of Indian Universities and Vice Chancellor of a NCR based International University Prof.PB Sharma paid glowing tributes to revered teachers but ripped open crevices of the country’s education policy for urgent radical reforms to stave off lurking perils of irreperable damage.
 

Asking for a fresh narrative for education, the eminent educationist said it is absolutelyS essential that Indian Government pays the highest attention to creating an illustrious clan of its teaching faculty for its 800 plus Universities and 45000 Colleges in India, currently facing a severe shortage of quality teachers.

Prof Sharma paid glowing tributes  to Dr Sarvapallai  Radha Krishanan on his birth day  which is marked as Teacher's Day on this day ( September 5 ) every year.

 According to him, the noble profession of teaching requires self-motivated, talented and inspired minds for whom teaching and research is a passion and a mission of life.

We need to seriously introspect on the ways of recruitment of teachers and even of the Vice chancellors for our universities and colleges, far it is not just the qualifications but the creative ability, ingenuity and innovativeness along with intent and attitude that matters most when it comes to nurturing talent, imparting competence and building character in the student community.

Prof Sharma who himself has been a Professor in IIT Delhi and Founder Vice Chancellor of DTU and RGTU said The teacher’s day should give a wakeup call to the government and those in the management of colleges and universities in India to mount a serious exercise of faculty search, to attract the very best minds of teachers, if need be, from beyond the national borders as Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan himself has stated “Teachers should be the best minds in the country”. 

Unfortunately, we have not learnt much from the best practices followed in the world class universities of the advanced countries like US, UK and Europe, nor from our Asian giants like Singapore and Japan where greatest care is taken for attracting the best minds for faculty and then driving them on the top of their performance by the peer pressure during annual reviews.'

It may be worthwhile to note that in the American universities 8-9 years of sustained high performance by a faculty, duly certified by both the peers and the students, is necessary to earn a tenure track position of professorship. 

Compared to this, most Indian Universities and Colleges still continue with the age old system of confirmation of faculty after one or maximum two years of probation.

“We need to make our education and research relevant to the needs of the society and industry. This requires aligning  our research and innovations to solving the pressing problems such as, environmental health, solid waste management, waste water processing, cleaning of our rivers and water bodies, clean energy and green transport technologies, marching ahead in the era of disruptive technologies and integrative sciences as also to achieve the goal of good health for all by focusing on well being rather than heath care and medicines so as to improve immunity by assuring good quality of air, water and food.

We need education for creating employment, including self employment  in plenty by accelerating startups in our colleges and universities to meet the aspirations of our 1.32 billion people in this country. 

We can do it but we need radical shift in our approach to education and research. The focus shall then shift from knowledge, gyana to capabilities, hunar.   We need to mount a massive exercise of training our teachers to make the best use of the technology for teaching  as also to sensitize them with the live problems of the locality and the region to inspire them to engage in society relevant research and solution research for the industry. “

 He said as India celebrates the Teacher’s Day and pays its homage to its illustrious educationist Dr Sarvepalli  Radhakrishnan, it would be appropriate to recall the great wisdom, unmatched reverence and honour that is attached to the teachers of our great civilization that regarded the wealth of knowledge as supreme and most pious.

Prof PB Sharma, who is the Vice Chancellor of Amity University Gurugram said For India, a teacher is revered as superior even to God Almighty.

The great teachers of the ancient India included Maharishi Viswamitra, Guru Vashishtha,  Guru Bhardwaj,  Guru Dronacharya, Guru Kripacharya and distinguished Kulpaties, Vice Chancellors  like Sanat Sanatan of the famous Sandeepini Ashram of Ujjain, where Prince Krishna himself had  studied along with poor Sudama.

This tradition of selfless service, personal sacrifice and practice of highest levels of work ethics, personal integrity  and professional morals was carried forward in modern India by  great many distinguished teachers of the modern times including Nobel Laureate Dr CV Raman, Nobel Laureate Dr Rabindranath Tagore, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Mahamana Pt Madan Mohan Malviya, Dr Syamaprasad Mookerji  and  Dr Savepalli Radhakrishnan  who  joined the noble profession of teaching, as for them education was the foundation of nation building and a vehicle of transformation of the society.

Dr Radhakrishnan,  making a humble beginning as a teacher in the Madras Presidency College rose to the illustrious heights of a distinguished Chaired Professor of Philosophy at  the world’s very best university, namely, University of Oxford. 

Dr Radhakrishnan later raised Andhra University as its Founder Vice Chancellor and also to the rise of BHU  as its second Vice Chancellor and became the President of Association of Indian Universities (1943-44) , finally rising to the august office of  the first Vice President and later second illustrious  President of the Indian Republic. He was awarded Bharat Ratna in 1954.  Apart from Dr S Radhakrishnan, the illustrious teachers of India who received the highest civilian honor of Bharat Ratna include Dr CV Raman, Dr Rabindranath Tagore, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam and Dr CNR Rao.

Given such an illustrious history and the intense urge in India to acquire good quality education One of the basic problems, in the later part of the post independence India, especially after the globalization in 1991, has been that the teaching profession was relegated to be the least preferred choice of the meritorious graduates who being largely unaware of the nobility of the teaching profession preferred more lucrative positions in corporate and industry.

He said the irreparable damage was further caused by the unabated expansion of the education sector that allowed mushrooming growth of colleges and universities without care and concerns for quality of faculty.

"We also need to train our teachers to involve the students in the teaching learning environment and encourage the teachers to learn from students. Though it may sound crazy, but the fact is that students today are often better informed and are in the know of the latest tools and gadgets than the teachers, because of the easy access to the vast knowledge reservoir. "

Prof. Sharma says It may be worthwhile to recall what the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi has said long ago “A teacher who establishes rapport with the taught, becomes one with them, learns more from them than he teaches them. He who learns nothing from his disciples is, in my opinion, worthless. Whenever I talk with someone I learn from him. I take from him more than I give him. In this way, a true teacher regards himself as a student of his students. If you will teach your pupils with this attitude, you will benefit much from them”. 

He said the learned counsel of Gandhi on this day when India is struggling to meet the challenge of quality and relevance of education is more important than ever before. At a time when the bells of “New India” have begun to resonate, it is high time for India to roll out its Education Policy that shall meet this long cherished goal of equipping the colleges and universities in India with the best minds of teachers and inspire them to make the profession of teaching as a “Privilege to Serve and a Privilege to Excel”, Prof. Sharma added.