Tapping The Teaching Talent

It is said that a mediocre teacher tells, a good teacher explains, a superior teacher demonstrates and that a great teacher inspires. Though the number in the last group may be limited there ought to be more in third and second. But unfortunately education sector has failed to attract them. As a result most of the young teachers of today are mere tellers who fail to get other glamorous  highly paid jobs. There was a time when even rank holders considered teaching as their first option. But today teaching is considered as a monotonous underpaid task by the majority. Human Resource Development minister Kapil Sibal recently announced media campaign to promote teaching. That is a right move, the success of which can determine the future of India.

Population is pointed out to be a problem in imparting quality education. The infrastructure requirement is high with population, but what is of greater importance is to tap the teaching talent that can be expected to be proportionally distributed in the increasing population. And it should be the government’s responsibility to find the  right teachers unlike the present scenario where people take it as their responsibility to find a job; and thereby degrading teaching, the noblest of all professions as one among several means to earn ones bread. My suggestion is simple-teachers should be recruited through campus interviews. Expert group consisting of senior professors and human resource developers can be formed in each state and different groups can be sent to different regions where they can camp and select the candidates. Cut-off can be fixed and the eligible candidates can be made to take seminars. It should be followed by an interview. Prizes and participation in debates speeches etc can be given weightage.

Degree level students can be interviewed for teaching up to 10^th and Post Graduation students for teaching up to 12^th. For teaching at the higher level, along with national level examinations that are conducted, teaching skills tested during the college days should be considered. The selected candidates should then be trained according to the classes allotted to them. Presently teachers at the degree level show flaws that can be attributed to the lack of proper understanding of student psychology.

By ensuring good living conditions and remuneration experts should be attracted first. It should not be a year long process for them. Again corruption should be avoided in the selection process. Firstly experts should be posted on a random basis. Secondly the expert group that selected a particular candidate should be a part of the educational history of the candidate, so that the group can be held responsible if the candidate is found to be unfit( Especially if several candidates selected by a particular group is found to be unfit).

Wipro  and Infosys takes the trouble to search for talent at the engineering colleges knowing well that it determines their overall performance. Such immediate results cannot be expected from the education sector. So the education ministers should be capable of looking beyond the next election. HRD ministry has an enthusiastic minister at its helm today. Selection of teachers should be done with the same seriousness with which candidates are selected into the armed forces. The process requires ten times the effort required today. But the result can be an India hundred times better than the present.