“Those who educate children well are
more to be honoured than they who produce them; for these only gave them life,
those the art of living well.”
Long back Aristotle explained the importance of respecting a teacher.
For any education system that aspires to make a mark empowering teachers is a must. Education as one of the subsystem of society has an extremely important role to play for the betterment of the society and teacher in particular is one of the most important instruments of that particular change. George Bernard Shaw in one of his famous quotes has said, “To me, the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching”.
Education, more particularly teacher has never been the priority of any of the successive governments in this part of the world, this could be gauged from the fact that the first full-fledged education policy at national level came in 1968, means after twenty-one years of Indian independence. On one side the government’s claim that we aspire to have international standards and on the other hand every year budget to education is reduced.
Kothari Education Commission of 1966 had recommended that government should spend at least six percent of its GDP on education and we are in 2018 where we actually spent only three and a half percent on education. We believe that there is a calculated onslaught to demise the value of public institutions in this part of the world in order to help the private institutions to flourish.
We have to understand the fact, why is it that the trust on our public institutions like government schools and government hospitals is getting lower and lower day by day and who all are getting benefited? We have to ask ourselves certain basic questions, why is that irrespective of qualified and brilliant teachers available in government educational institutions, we prefer to send our children to private educational institutions and take pride in the same.
In spite that our government hospitals have the best doctors available, why is that we prefer to go to private hospital. We must understand that something is terribly wrong with our public institutions and one of the many reasons is that public institutions have lost the trust. We believe that unless the trust is not restored the situation will further deteriorate and that will be a disaster.
We are seeing even today that for nursery admission in any reputed private institution of the country a parent has to spent three to five lakh rupees and for some private universities one semester fee is around four to five lakh rupees, and can you imagine what it really means, it means that actually in this country poor people should not dream of education, not to talk of quality education. We have to understand that why general people are losing trust on public institutions, there could be multiple reasons for that, and one among them is bad condition of people working in these institutions.
Can we believe in 21st century our public-school teachers have to come on roads to demand their salary? Our doctors, especially working under central sponsored schemes have to come on roads to press for their demand of regularisation.
This is how we have devalued our public institutions by degrading our teachers and doctors. Teachers help us to build our societies and doctors help us to be healthy. Let us help ourselves understand that how can public servants work effectively, if they are made to worry about money and have poor financial conditions. If we really believe that we have to make a mark at national and international level then political leadership of state must understand that investment in public institutions is absolutely necessary and it has to be done under any circumstances.
Moreover, we should try to build the capacities of our public institutions by building the capacities of the people associated with these institutions. Institutions should put in place a mechanism whereby the staff has an opportunity to continuously learn and improve their skills over time. We have to make sure that the potential which is there in our teachers and doctors or in any public servant for that matter gets realised to the best of their capability.
Government and policy makers in particular have to decide on which side of border they want to see themselves, if they really want to be on the side of common people, which I believe they must, then they need to support the public intuitions sincerely and passionately.
In the same breath it never means that private institutions should not be allowed to flourish rather a level playing field must be provided to them for the sake of competition and for its own sake also, as fundamentally in a democratic society everyone has a right to establish an institution(s).
But we have to ensure that any private institution(s) should not come at the cost of public institution(s). Let a competitive environment be created where both public and private institutions are providing almost equal quality of service and people will have an opportunity to exercise their choice.
To conclude I believe there is a need to understand the inevitability of public institutions more particularly qualitative and competitive educational institutions, because of the economic conditions of the people living here.
Note: The views expressed are personal.
Manzoor Ahmad Parey is Assistant Professor,
Degree College Ganderbal, Kashmir.
manzoorparey@gmail.com