Sitting on the balcony of my dwelling few days gone by and observing the enthralling- weather; as the climate of Kashmir playing hide and seek since last September. I was pondering over the new recruitment policy of government when my mom brought me a hot cup of coffee, gigantic weakness of mine; she knows it. As I was taking sips from my zodiac- sign cup, when my eyes caught the sight outside the main gate of my house. I saw beautiful children in uniform: white shirt and grey pent with a beautiful tie; that was all they were clad in. the children looked neat and clean, the faces were angelic in nature, and were striding in cherry and merry, as for me they were real cherubs.
Roaming over this contemplation, unexpectedly my eyes met the other group walking towards the grooming centres which we name as Educational-- institute, the difference between these children were that one group was looking real angel and the other one archetype of William Blake’s ‘Chimney Sweeper’ . Lost in my imagination, my intellect started to muse over the difference between the groups.
Few years back when I left university I started working in an institution, though private, once settling out the monthly wages and other things, they accepted to pay me 7000(Seven thousand) a month, but believe me I was assigned to seven classes, I found seven thousand mere as compared to my work, in those days Karl Marx, had become my lure. He would come in my dreams recurrently; I started virtually comprehending the theory of class-struggle. I was working from, 8:30 am to 3:30 pm, this horrendous task had made me that machine which a capitalist would start at morning and close at the evening. I was becoming wearisome with the job and at times would feel justice is seeping from my blood; after all seven classes is not a jest, it demands sweat.
One day after offering ‘Magrib---Prayers, I went to market to put money into my mobile account, in the meantime I saw my friend who was luckily there; once greeting and other things were done, we went straight to academics. I let you know, he is a teacher by profession, I mean government hired. I questioned him, how many classes he is assigned to? ‘He in a very polite and humble way said three and at times four in arrangement.’ I did not ask him for monthly wages and other things as I being acquainted with that. His monthly wages were more than twenty thousand .Juddering with his answer, I started asking myself if the person is drawing good salary and has a good qualification then why still government schools lack that quality education, which a common-- mass expects from it.
I have myself seen government schools having quality best teachers, who have qualified nation and sate level exams; such as :NET, JRF, SLET, KAS preliminary even some crack first step of IAS, etc but still when we see annual progress report of these quality best teachers, it brings us in complete disdain. One is at loss to see that private schools which are wholly and solely dependent on the fee which they drag from the parents of their enrolled circle, are running in high standard manner; be that curricular activities or co-curricular. We have started becoming that much lethargic that it does not now astonish us in any way when the top most rank of 10th or 12th standard goes into the lap of these private institution, we without any anguish accept open heartedly their top ranks on the lists and take things for granted devoid of sitting and talking over the issues, which is a sort of volcanic eruption for a populace.
The strangest thing which puts me into topsy—turvy is that government teachers have put their wards into the leading private institutions as they being themselves up to date about the fact that in government schools they are enjoying the most deluxe and leisure time, and even some teachers have started captioning it as their ‘leisure time’. I once visited a school in my vicinity, there I saw children at one side playing with other children and teacher of the same institute sharing chairs with opposite gender on the other side, they were laughing on silly things, this episode halted me from every corner and I started saying myself; by education, does a teacher mean that?
Education believes in playing method but I was not able to grasp what sort of playing method was that! Psychology believes in inculcation and focuses up on formative stage then what a child will inculcate when a female teacher and male teacher would share the same chair?
Since in these days the government is too busy at new policy and seven year contractual program, which thankfully has been debarred by Mr. honourable governor, otherwise common Kashmiri would have to endure much pain and delay, which he has been undergoing since ages. I opine besides working in the new recruitment policy and contractual program, government should have payed heed to these issues which are burning and are spreading like a wild fire. I’ve read a saying, “he who opens a school door, closes a prison,” but one staggers to see that the current education trend has failed in that, today we have immense schools, colleges, and university but still quality education has become a dream.
If I put my own observation here I would say that a bad teacher would make an interesting student dull and a good teacher will definitely make a dull pupil a shining star. In the professional courses of education focus is laid up on certain things, such as: motivation, discussion, playing method and research based aptitude, but once coming into the field one experiences that these things are just confined to books and are unfounded and baseless in the pitch.
Government schools have no dearth of sources but still have flunked in presenting quality best education in the field as compared to the private schools which are run by a head exclusive of professional skill.
Some day’s back I was thinking over these issues when my mind started responding me, my mind started giving me the solution of the problems which are the need of hour, by which the government run school won’t struggle further in the field. Some of given points are as under:
1) It should be made mandatory for a teacher who works in the government or semi government institution to admit his/her son or daughter in the same institution, by which a father will act as a scanner in the institution and will surely take pains in the academics; which by the end will result in progression of the government schools.
2) For checks and balance of these schools a monitoring unit should be implemented in order to check the monthly progress of this school, in case a school found having fallacies then the concerned principal or headmaster of the school should be penalized by stopping his monthly wage; as head of the family is responsible not the members.
3) If any teacher belonging to any stream failed in giving the best result, by best I mean not less than 75% than that concerned teacher must not be given the monthly salary for at least three months, not only this but also be deflated to low standard to teach than the assigned one.
4) The evaluating should be done at ZEO centres from 6th upwards and different teachers be given different schools for evaluation of the papers, keeping in mind the discretion of things.
5) Annual progress report of the teachers must be digitalized within the contours of BOSE sites.
6) The annual foundation of NOC (No Objection certificate) must be laid for all the teachers at the concerned BOSE branches so that it will be a foolproof mechanism for making them work honestly and dedicatedly.
7) Only those students should be allowed to sit in the 10th and 12th annual exams who at least have qualified the two exams taken by the institution/school.
8) All the schools should be given the staff as per its need and each teacher be given the load according his/her shoulder.
9) Each teacher should be assigned to his/her subject and focus be put down on the linguistic skills and only concerned language teachers must be given the language task/classes, considering the fact of language void.
10) The increment and the maturity should be put down on the basis of performance than fingering the number of years.
11) And at last the most important point, the swapping of timetable must be executed; as children are less interested after lunch time.
If we want to speed up the next generation then we have to think collectively than sitting and talking at the stalk shops. We have to have the unity and collective conscience to stand and stride together.
The writer is the former student of Kashmir University, department of English. Mail at: mufti.jameel97@gmail.com//