Quality Education – the Debate is always on.....

 

Education civilizes; education equips; education enables; education guides; and above all education empowers. History is evident of the fact that the societies that lagged in educating their masses were also left behind in their race of socio-economic development and moral enrichment. We don’t need to go anywhere else. Just refer to our own history and we will get the point I am referring here. Just compare the state of education before the starting of the modern Education System with the state of education after the implementation of the modern system. Earlier we were totally cut off from the world not knowing what was happening out of our country. After the implementation of the modern education system we are better off to the modern world.

However, recently people have started talking about quality of education is going on all around and the community of teachers are blamed for bringing down the quality of education. Now we, the teachers, are blamed by every Tom Jack and Zill for bringing down the quality in Education. Sadly but infamously we have earned the tag of being responsible for losing the quality in our education system and product.

This scenario is like a double edged sword as it reminds me about the responsibility that very soon I am going to yoke as a teacher on one hand and the sadistic and poor attitude of the people-other-than-teachers towards the community of teachers. And as a future teacher I feel like getting cuts all over my mind and psyche from this double edged sword.

When I ponder over the issue of quality education surprisingly I fail to understand why ‘Education’ which is meant and supposed to develop all the desired moral values and qualities in human beings has lost its own ‘quality’ in our context. Nowadays “Quality Education” has become the commonest topic of debate all around. No matter whether we are sitting in our drawing room or in a public informal gathering; whether we are having a formal meeting or informal discussion; whether we are enjoying a cup of tea in front of a street tea-stall or enjoying the luxurious meal in an elite-class hotel we can see people grossly engrossed in discussion over this topic. We also see this debate intensively going on in print and audio-visual media. This debate has metamorphosed itself into a street slogan and I am apprehensive that this may lead to demean the respectful place of teachers in society hence the need of the time is to understand the concept and philosophy of “Quality Education” in its real sense.

At this point it’s quite obvious that we seriously ask few questions to ourselves. What is “Quality Education”? What could be some of the parameters that guarantee this “Quality Education”? What is role of teachers in ensuring quality education? And also how far are the society and family responsible for this downfall in the quality of education? Until and unless we understand all these aspects about quality education we cannot claim authoritatively that we have understood the concept clearly.

The importance of education is best explained by the Chinese proverb that says: "If you want to think of one year ahead, plant rice, if you want to think of 10 years ahead, plant trees, but if you want to think of 100 years ahead, give education to people." This clearly signifies the fact that education equips people for future. But then education does not only mean mere accumulation of facts and information by the learner. Rather, the real education means the process that develops human being with all the moral and ethical values and human touch to face the challenges of the world. And there could no denying to the fact that much of this value and moral learning is ensured by the family and the society at large and we the teachers have not so much to do in this regard. Unfortunately guided by the strong materialistic thoughts the modern education system is slowly getting detached from all these requisites. An objective and careful observation of our society and surrounding shows that modern education system is creating professionals such as doctors, engineers, lawyers & etc. bent on scaling economic achievements rather than producing a sensible human being and responsible citizen enriched with high ethics and rich moral values. In other words modern system and approach to education is producing money-monsters ready to do anything – moral or immoral – to grab more and more and more. There seems no saturation point for this greed of accumulating wealth. Our modern Education System equips us only with information – a lot of information –without adding any fragrance and touch of morality, honesty, sensibility, responsibility and humanity and civic sense in our children. Western world, after chasing and pursuing this information oriented system of education for a long time, has realized this harsh but ultimate reality and is now trying to incorporate those eastern elements in their system that we have been discarding slowly but ruthlessly.

The profession of teaching was respected very highly in the society and people used to opt this profession by choice. The factor of wealth-making was not so prominent then. But in our obsessive journey from our ancient-hood to modernity we have become more materialistic and money oriented rather than being value and moral oriented. As of now the job of teaching in our country is not a preferred option; rather it’s a Hobson’s choice for most of the aspirants. The government and the society have to think why it’s like that and address the issue sooner than later.

At this juncture, while considering about the role of teachers for ensuring the quality in education I find myself at a crossroad and confused about whether to follow the value-rich-ethic-oriented ancient system of education or money-oriented modern system of education. I would like to draw the attention of all the stake holders of our society in the process of education – the learner, the teacher, the parents, and the government officials - towards the realization that we need to develop a perfect balance and equilibrium between the ancient and modern system of education where modern education system creates a perfect blend with traditional values and ethics of our glorious past. I hope by doing this once again we can achieve our ancient glory of being the “respect-worthy teachers”.

In the modern sense “Quality Education” could be explained as the system that enables the majority of the learners to meet the expectation of the "Minimum Level of Learning". It means stimulating creative thinking and developing problem-solving skills among the learners. To achieve this we need to focus on developing few basic things in the right proportion so that we can ensure quality in our education system.

The first and foremost thing in this regard is to realise the fact that the education of our children is the primary responsibility all – the teachers, the parents, and the government. And hence only teachers cannot be blamed for the degradation in the quality of education. The parents and the government cannot wash their hands off it. Ours is a welfare state and education is free her but that does not mean that parents have no role in it. The present scenario is that parents admit their children in schools and think that their responsibility is over. This has to change and parents need to involve themselves in the process of educating their children. They need to give some of their personal time to their children. They need to tell their sons and daughters that before making them a doctor, an engineer, or an officer they desire to make them a good human being and a responsible citizen with high moral values and character. They should start appreciating these qualities in them rather than always digging their marks and possible perks of their future job.

The second most important factor to ensure quality of education is the attitude and the level of commitment of teachers. It’s not only the degrees that they possess or the knowledge of a teacher that makes a good teacher; rather it’s the attitude of the teacher that makes him/her a good teacher. In fact a teacher with positive attitude and higher commitment but with comparatively low content level is a much better teacher than the one who possesses high qualification and rich content but wears a low commitment and poor attitude. Teachers with poor attitudes are like contagious disease in the system that infects the other colleagues as well as the young children whom they teach and hence it’s highly recommendable that this aspect of measuring the attitude and commitment is taken into strict consideration while selecting people for this noble job.

The third most important factor to ensure quality education relates to the system and the government. In order to ensure quality, the system and the government need to focus on human resource management. The government need to put extra attention, efforts and focus on teacher resource management. Recently we see that many teachers have left the profession and opted some other jobs. Why is it so? The government must find out why.   

However I personally feel that besides empowering them professionally, intellectually and financially the government also need to define and ensure accountability for them. A balanced system of reward & punishment must be created so that the right one be rewarded and the wrong one be punished. The government and our respectable politicians-in-power have to think and find out why people do not choose the job of teaching by choice; why it has a become a job of compulsion; why people join teaching when they are left with no other option? Until and unless they do so the situation will remain like the “GODS are in Heaven and everything is well on Earth”.

To ensure quality the education must be released from the stranglehold of the red-tapism and the control should come in the hands of ‘Eduationists-turned into Administrators’ rather than in the hands of dry Administrators or ‘Admistrators-turned-into-Educationists’ because only the real educationists can understand the real problem and find the best possible solution.

In conclusion we can say that the community, the parents, the learners, the government and above all the teachers must take keen interest if at all we want to ensure “Quality” in the education of our children. Education is the foundation upon which we have to build our society. All other developments depend upon the development in the field of education. It has to be our first and foremost social priority. So let’s put our hands together and take a pledge that we all will leave no stone unturned to ensure that our children get the best possible education endowed with all the desired qualities and standards. Let’s hope that the government and the people-in-power- political as well as administrative - realise the importance of education and teachers and give them their due.  Let’s strive hard to allow this wisdom to prevail; let’s hope that ultimately this wisdom prevails.

Dr. Rajiv Ranjan

Principal
M.A. (Eng); Ph. D.;  B.Ed. 
P. G. D. in H. R.

Simultala Awasiya Vidyalaya Simultala

Jamui Bihar.