primary school teachers the twists and turns of everyday practice

Version 20 Oct 08, edited final
of posts. Teachers we spoke to in these two states said that this was a huge
motivator. Incidentally, we also met officials in SSA who had started their careers as
primary school teachers.
When the Shiksha Karmi Project was initiated the idea was to enable rural youth to
gradually upgrade their educational qualifications and thereby become ‘regular’
teachers at some point of time. Recently (2007) the Orissa government has proposed
that those who enter as para-teachers/contract teachers should, over the years, move
up to become regular teachers. Interestingly the World Bank is also proposing a
similar regime, whereby a teacher could first be hired as an apprentice and then
move up to become an associate teacher (based on performance and educational
status) and finally a ‘master’, meaning a regular teacher. This approach also argues
for checks and balances in the tasks of hiring, posting/assignment, training, salary,
supervision and dismissal—thereby ‘balance(ing) local control with higher-level
support for training, professional standards and monitoring’ (Pritchett and Pance
2006).
Do we have a chance?
For far too long educationists and researchers have only analysed and pointed out
what is wrong and how terrible the system is. The time has come to develop clear
plans—maybe state-specific plans—for educational reform. There is a need to bring
together like-minded people and those with experience in both the education sector
as well as in management to develop concrete alternatives, put them out into the
public domain and talk to people who care. Momentous changes like the Right to
Information or the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)
programme did not happen because someone in government had a bright idea. They
came about because a group of people decided to work towards them.
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