primary school teachers the twists and turns of everyday practice

Version 20 Oct 08, edited final
country report being under tremendous pressure from the administration to furnish
reams of data through countless formats. Political leaders expect them to lobby and
campaign for them in return for protection or favours and the district administration
expects them to carry out a range of administrative duties. Teachers also claim that
their working conditions are poor and they have to negotiate a corrupt system where
programmes involving mid-day meals, construction and repair of buildings,
teaching-learning material (TLM) and, most importantly, teacher-training, are
converted into rent-seeking opportunities. Proponents of these arguments say that if
teachers were only left alone to do their jobs, they would have the time and space
they need to dedicate to teaching.
A third set of arguments, utilised most often by educationists and NGOs around the
country who have engaged with the realities of teachers and teaching at the primary
level, looks primarily at how the terms ‘teacher’ and ‘teaching’ are conceived within
our education system, and how this conceptualisation is reflected in existing systems
for teacher-training and support. Despite the idealised vision of the teacher
contained in education policy documents, the education system treats teachers as
lowly recipients and implementers of instructions and content designed elsewhere,
rather than as actively engaged participants in a creative and dynamic process.
Teachers have neither incentives nor support to find ways of teaching better: why
then should they bother? Evidence in favour of these arguments can be found in the
outcomes of innovative initiatives such as the Shiksha Karmi Project (SKP) in
Rajasthan, Eklavya in Madhya Pradesh (MP), Nali Kali in Karnataka and the work of
the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) in Maharashtra, among
many others. These arguments emphasise the view that in order to succeed, efforts at
reform must place teachers themselves squarely in the centre of a process of analysis,
design and implementation.
The above discussion tries to simplify a very complex situation in order to illustrate
the different ways in which to think about the issue of improving the quality of
teaching in our primary schools. Is there a ‘right answer’? How can we even begin to
think about how to improve the quality of primary schooling if we are unable to
agree on a diagnosis?
The Indian education system is under tremendous pressure to adapt to the growing
demand for meaningful education for all, and the teacher, the only visible
functionary in an otherwise opaque system, is facing the brunt of the attack from all
sides. Since 1990 the proactive role of the Government of India (GoI) for ‘Education
for All’ has not only resulted in the introduction of a range of Central Sector Schemes
which have pumped in financial resources for school improvement and teacher
development; it has also increased the demand for data for monitoring progress.
There is no doubt that the teacher is at the receiving end and as Dr. Raghavendra
Chattopadhyay explains: ‘by putting unbearable pressure you harvest corruption. 1 ’
An added complication is that according to recent District Information System on
Education (DISE) data (Mehta 2008) about 10 per cent of the teachers are over the age
of 55 years and thus expected to retire soon. At the same time, given expanding
enrolments as also an increasing child population, there will soon be 24 crore
children in the 5 to 14 years age group. India will need a huge army of teachers:
some estimates put it at close to 60 lakhs only at the primary and middle school
levels. Conceiving of a systemic overhaul on this scale is a daunting task.
1 Interview with Dr. Raghavendra Chattopadhyay, IIM-Calcutta, Kolkata, 15 July 2008.
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