Regretably as the Expert Comment column (written by Dr. Neeraj Kaushal of Columbia University, USA) in this issue of EducationWorld highlights, the teachers’ community in India doesn’t enjoy a good reputation. Several studies and surveys have confirmed that on any given school day, 25 percent of government school teachers countrywide don’t show up for work. And of the 4 million who do show up, half do very little teaching.
In the circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that 53 percent — that’s over 100 million — of children enroled in primary school drop out of the government-run education system characterised by decrepit infrastructure, crowded classes, lack of electricity, drinking water and toilet facilities, apart from chronic teacher absenteeism. The accumulative impact of this open and continuous negligence is wastage of high-potential human capital of unprecedented proportions.
Nevertheless while this grim indictment is substantially accurate, the opposite is also true. All over the country there are thousands of dedicated and committed primary and secondary school teachers exerting themselves beyond the call of duty, to give their best to students.
The annual Tata Consultancy Services-EducationWorld Teachers Awards were instituted in 2005 to acknowledge and felicitate such teachers who exert themselves to invest extra effort — especially by way of pedagogy innovations — in their classrooms. Thus far over the past five years, we have celebrated over 40 primary and secondary school teachers from across the country by gifting them computers, cash awards and trophies. Moreover we provide them national publicity by profiling them in EducationWorld, in the hope that teachers countrywide will be encouraged to emulate them. Our special thanks to the enlightened management of TCS — India’s premier IT software development and consultancy company (no. of employees: 140,000) — for cooperating with us in this initiative, which is so patently in the national interest.
The special report feature in this issue is not unrelated to the cover story. Our Lucknow-based special correspondent Puja Awasthi, draws attention to the special efforts that a few institutional managements are making to maintain and upgrade academic standards in one of India’s most lawless and educationally backward states.
