A Code for Teachers
Source: By AK Ghosh: The Statesman
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching ~ that is really what our enthusiasm for education has come to. ~ Oscar Wilde in The Decay Of Lying.
The University Grants Commission has advanced its performance-based appraisal system for promotion of teachers in colleges and universities. It requires the institutions to rate and promote teachers on the basis of classroom lectures, seminars, examination assignments and contribution to research. This evaluation is essential if the quality of higher education is to be improved.
Obsolescence is marked by the loss of acquired knowledge and the absence of fresh learning. This can happen unless an effort is made to stimulate the expansion of knowledge. This is particularly noticeable among college and university teachers since they possess little proficiency in integrating technology into their teaching and research.
Teachers are expected to keep abreast of the latest methods of teaching; they should be primarily concerned with engaging the attention of students in class. The Academic Performance Index (API) accords weightage to teaching-learning activities that include lectures, seminars, tutorials, laboratory work, course upgrades, teaching load in excess of UGC norms and examination duties. In the past, teaching as a profession could not attract talented young men and women because of low salaries and social status. The UGC’s annual report for 1959-60 stated: “The teaching profession usually attracts only two types of university men. One of these consists of young graduates who have genuine love for teaching and research and, who decide to adopt teaching as their vocation. The second consists of a large number of students of average merit who fail to get into more lucrative positions and enter the teaching profession not so much by choice as by the force of circumstances. The first type is rare and the ranks of the teaching positions tend to be largely filled by the second type”.
In advanced countries such as the USA, the situation was not altogether different. Encyclopedia of Educational Research (1982) published by the American Educational Research Association explained: “Most teachers over forty, especially if female, plan to stay in teaching until retirement, whereas 41.4 per cent of teachers, fewer than thirty, are undecided about a teaching future. More significant, however, was the finding that they would enter teaching again, given a chance, with about 10 per cent of today’s teachers intending to teach only until something better comes along and five per cent more definitely planning to leave the profession as soon as possible”.
However, after the implementation of the enhanced pay-scales for college and university teachers, the authorities have been trying to enforce the code of conduct scheme as part of the National Education Policy, which includes the presence of teachers at their work-place for at least 40 hours a week. Whereas the Rastogi Committee’s recommendation on a substantial pay-packet was intended to attract talent into the teaching profession, the committee did advance a critical observation ~ “Teachers play a crucial role in the development of the education system as a whole. The number of graduates, post-graduates and research degree holders coming out of the institutions of higher learning have not only contributed to the development in industrial service sectors, but have also contributed crucial inputs for the education system itself by providing technical and other academic personnel required. While the importance of these contributions cannot be doubted or belittled, questions are increasingly being raised with regard to the relevance and quality of higher education”.
An important task has been assigned to teachers by the National Council of Teachers Education. It envisages that a teacher will be a person who takes up teaching as a profession... not only to teach in the classroom but also to be an agent of social change. The demand for committed teachers in an age of information explosion cannot be questioned and the NCTE recommends that teachers must have “commitment to achieve excellence and commitment to basic human values”. So, to prove himself as a “knowledge worker”, the teacher in the information age needs to be suitably competent in order to work effectively.
The teacher has traditionally been regarded by the community as one with sufficient knowledge to hold forth on his/her subject. They should teach in a manner that will enable the students to acquire what is called “novelty in knowledge”. Unfortunately, many teachers in the higher education segment are yet to develop an intellectual capacity to see beyond what seems to be the obvious. Many teachers continue to teach without thinking in terms of academic improvement. The UGC has undertaken the programmes of orientation and refresher courses. But is there any proper appraisal methodology to measure their performance after they have completed such courses? Several Academic Staff Colleges have been reduced to institutions to provide certificates to the course participants. This may be useful in terms of obtaining promotions but not in removing their obsolescence.
Unfortunately, the universities are contributing to professional obsolescence rather than excellence. The resource crunch does not always allow them to expand the infrastructure. Books and journals are not bought regularly to update their knowledge with the latest publications. Most of the invaluable books are never read. Ph D dissertations are often repetitive. This can hardly remove the incumbent’s obsolescence.
Rabindranath Tagore envisaged a teacher to be a lamp emitting light which requires continuous inputs and growth. As the lamp without regular inputs in terms of wick and oil ceases to emit light, so does a stagnant teacher. As a result, many teachers fail to inspire the students “to follow knowledge like a sinking star”.
As far as the implementation of the new API for promotion is concerned, the infrastructure facilities are yet be unequivocally spelt out. However, the teachers must take their share of responsibility for the dwindling academic atmosphere by following the code of conduct which provides for their presence at the place of work for 40 hours a week. Unless teaching acquires the characteristics of a profession, members of faculties cannot fulfil their role as teachers more effectively than they do at present, since most of them look upon teaching as a job for which the pay cheque is the only reward. It is really unfortunate if the teacher feels that he is giving of his best to an unworthy cause, fighting a battle under a flag that he does not honour.
It is true that teachers can generate ideas and if they can display human resilience of a high order, no robot can replace them. What we need today in higher education is an adequate number of dedicated teachers who can pursue the profession with a religious fervour, as it were. As Tagore’s convocation address to his pupils (Taittiriya Upanished) asserts: “Speak what is true. Do your duties. Continue without neglect the daily study of the Vedas. Achieve greatness, and do not fail to refresh your memory in respect of what you have learnt.”
As George Bernard Shaw had once remarked “The best of us shall become teachers and rest can go wherever they want to”.
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching ~ that is really what our enthusiasm for education has come to. ~ Oscar Wilde in The Decay Of Lying.
The University Grants Commission has advanced its performance-based appraisal system for promotion of teachers in colleges and universities. It requires the institutions to rate and promote teachers on the basis of classroom lectures, seminars, examination assignments and contribution to research. This evaluation is essential if the quality of higher education is to be improved.
Obsolescence is marked by the loss of acquired knowledge and the absence of fresh learning. This can happen unless an effort is made to stimulate the expansion of knowledge. This is particularly noticeable among college and university teachers since they possess little proficiency in integrating technology into their teaching and research.
Teachers are expected to keep abreast of the latest methods of teaching; they should be primarily concerned with engaging the attention of students in class. The Academic Performance Index (API) accords weightage to teaching-learning activities that include lectures, seminars, tutorials, laboratory work, course upgrades, teaching load in excess of UGC norms and examination duties. In the past, teaching as a profession could not attract talented young men and women because of low salaries and social status. The UGC’s annual report for 1959-60 stated: “The teaching profession usually attracts only two types of university men. One of these consists of young graduates who have genuine love for teaching and research and, who decide to adopt teaching as their vocation. The second consists of a large number of students of average merit who fail to get into more lucrative positions and enter the teaching profession not so much by choice as by the force of circumstances. The first type is rare and the ranks of the teaching positions tend to be largely filled by the second type”.
In advanced countries such as the USA, the situation was not altogether different. Encyclopedia of Educational Research (1982) published by the American Educational Research Association explained: “Most teachers over forty, especially if female, plan to stay in teaching until retirement, whereas 41.4 per cent of teachers, fewer than thirty, are undecided about a teaching future. More significant, however, was the finding that they would enter teaching again, given a chance, with about 10 per cent of today’s teachers intending to teach only until something better comes along and five per cent more definitely planning to leave the profession as soon as possible”.
However, after the implementation of the enhanced pay-scales for college and university teachers, the authorities have been trying to enforce the code of conduct scheme as part of the National Education Policy, which includes the presence of teachers at their work-place for at least 40 hours a week. Whereas the Rastogi Committee’s recommendation on a substantial pay-packet was intended to attract talent into the teaching profession, the committee did advance a critical observation ~ “Teachers play a crucial role in the development of the education system as a whole. The number of graduates, post-graduates and research degree holders coming out of the institutions of higher learning have not only contributed to the development in industrial service sectors, but have also contributed crucial inputs for the education system itself by providing technical and other academic personnel required. While the importance of these contributions cannot be doubted or belittled, questions are increasingly being raised with regard to the relevance and quality of higher education”.
An important task has been assigned to teachers by the National Council of Teachers Education. It envisages that a teacher will be a person who takes up teaching as a profession... not only to teach in the classroom but also to be an agent of social change. The demand for committed teachers in an age of information explosion cannot be questioned and the NCTE recommends that teachers must have “commitment to achieve excellence and commitment to basic human values”. So, to prove himself as a “knowledge worker”, the teacher in the information age needs to be suitably competent in order to work effectively.
The teacher has traditionally been regarded by the community as one with sufficient knowledge to hold forth on his/her subject. They should teach in a manner that will enable the students to acquire what is called “novelty in knowledge”. Unfortunately, many teachers in the higher education segment are yet to develop an intellectual capacity to see beyond what seems to be the obvious. Many teachers continue to teach without thinking in terms of academic improvement. The UGC has undertaken the programmes of orientation and refresher courses. But is there any proper appraisal methodology to measure their performance after they have completed such courses? Several Academic Staff Colleges have been reduced to institutions to provide certificates to the course participants. This may be useful in terms of obtaining promotions but not in removing their obsolescence.
Unfortunately, the universities are contributing to professional obsolescence rather than excellence. The resource crunch does not always allow them to expand the infrastructure. Books and journals are not bought regularly to update their knowledge with the latest publications. Most of the invaluable books are never read. Ph D dissertations are often repetitive. This can hardly remove the incumbent’s obsolescence.
Rabindranath Tagore envisaged a teacher to be a lamp emitting light which requires continuous inputs and growth. As the lamp without regular inputs in terms of wick and oil ceases to emit light, so does a stagnant teacher. As a result, many teachers fail to inspire the students “to follow knowledge like a sinking star”.
As far as the implementation of the new API for promotion is concerned, the infrastructure facilities are yet be unequivocally spelt out. However, the teachers must take their share of responsibility for the dwindling academic atmosphere by following the code of conduct which provides for their presence at the place of work for 40 hours a week. Unless teaching acquires the characteristics of a profession, members of faculties cannot fulfil their role as teachers more effectively than they do at present, since most of them look upon teaching as a job for which the pay cheque is the only reward. It is really unfortunate if the teacher feels that he is giving of his best to an unworthy cause, fighting a battle under a flag that he does not honour.
It is true that teachers can generate ideas and if they can display human resilience of a high order, no robot can replace them. What we need today in higher education is an adequate number of dedicated teachers who can pursue the profession with a religious fervour, as it were. As Tagore’s convocation address to his pupils (Taittiriya Upanished) asserts: “Speak what is true. Do your duties. Continue without neglect the daily study of the Vedas. Achieve greatness, and do not fail to refresh your memory in respect of what you have learnt.”
As George Bernard Shaw had once remarked “The best of us shall become teachers and rest can go wherever they want to”.
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