Government schools teachers are doing fairly Well!
When it comes to difference in performances between a private school and a government school, one immediately jumps to the conclusion that private school teachers are doing better than government school teachers, leaving aside all other responsible factors which actually play the main role in creating a difference. For example, If you expect a good quality product be made from a factory, four things need to be ensured, that are the good factory in terms of it’s infrastructure, factory management, good quality raw material, and good human resource, all the four things are equally responsible for good quality product. If either of the first three parts of the factory would be faulty, you would not imagine a good product.
Same holds true with education department, where a teacher is just a human resource and should not be put wholly and solely responsible for every shortcoming in the system.
Undoubtedly, the teachers have the a responsibility to bring out the best possible results, which they are working hard for, but that doesn’t mean that one should take all other factors for granted. For better performance in government schools, the proper management of government schools, infrastructure, standard curriculum, teacher empowerment, proper teacher/student ratio, exemption from non-teaching assignments, good school environment, parental care for students, etc all play a vital role in this process.
A teacher should not be differentiated on the basis of the sector, whether private or government, which he belongs to but the efficiency, hard work, dedication and determination towards the profession are the signs of a good teacher. The duty of teacher is the same in both the sectors. In many of the cases, those teachers who have worked in private schools are presently working in government schools. I myself have years of experience as a private school teacher.
My past experience tells me that I could do better in private school than in government school, despite the same efforts in either of the two cases. This made me to learn that the reason for the difference between learning outcomes of students in private schools and the learning outcomes of students in government schools is not due to difference in the teaching, but it is actually the difference in learning abilities of students, parental care, system influence and peer group influence that in private schools differ from in government schools.
However, while talking about schools, the best school for a child is the lap of his/her mother, from where the learning begins. Researches on early childhood suggest that children learn and develop with more pace from their birth to eight years of age, which is termed as his/her early childhood. During this stage children are highly influenced by the environment and the people that surround them. Be it physical development and health, be it socio-emotional development, be it cognitive development or be it general learning all is developed at a good rate during this stage.
An approach called ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education) is there which is aimed at early development of children. So according to UNESCO, ECCE is one of the best investment a country can make to promote human resource development, gender equality and social cohesion, and to reduce the costs for later remedial programmes. For disadvantaged children, ECCE plays an important role in compensating for the disadvantages in the family and combating educational inequalities
Apart from influential environment, good nutrition and good guidance through interaction plays a vital role for growth and development of children during their early childhood. So, most of the credit goes to the best teacher (the mother) for the growth, development and learning of a child during his crucial period of life. Then, after the parents, the role of school teacher begins. The teaching-learning process at elementary level is a tri-polar process as the learning outcomes are end-products of teaching by teacher, learning by learner and environment provided to the children. So, proper care and watch by parents also plays a vital role.
A famous and noted philosopher, Aristotle, has said that, “give me a child until he is 7, I will show you the man”. By this he means to indicate the significance of learning during the early years of growth. From this quote it is very clear that early childhood influences are essential for better learning and also indicates that how a family back ground can influence in shaping a child’s future.
No one can disagree with the fact that private schools are doing well but at the same time government school teachers are also not lagging behind to give their best, and are trying hard to be at par with private schools.
However, it is quite clear that the government schools attract mostly the disadvantaged lot with low social-economical background and private schools attract the lot from good social- economical background. Moreover the students from poor background admitted in government schools are also mostly first generation learners, where as the students in private schools are from educationally well off families. Despite that gulf of difference in backgrounds, it is much appreciable and encouraging that from past many years government school teachers are doing great by putting out best results almost at par with private schools.
Few years ago, we the teachers of few schools had a child-health related meeting organised by health department. We were told by medical professionals to aware parents about health and hygiene of students. Apart from that some deficiency diseases were are discussed at length. The deficiency of some essential minerals, vitamins and nutrients, they told us could also cause learning disabilities. It surprised us all when a teacher made it humorous by saying, “all my students are suffering from learning disabilities, despite my hard efforts, I don’t get satisfactory learning outcomes”.
The matter of fact is that some students from low income families do suffer for balanced diet, hence they do lack proper mental and physical development. For the purpose, in country MDM “Mid Day Meal” a centrally sponsored scheme has been in progress from past many years to reach out with balance diet to students. But still the balanced diet is a dream for them, because so called MDM doesn’t carry sufficient proteins, vitamin and minerals. Fruits which are rich in vitamins are totally not included in the menu.
Coming to the main subject- the performance of government teachers- there are heaps of Non-teaching assignments for them. When it comes to non-teaching assignments, the teaching hardly remains a priority. The teachers are supposed to carry out census duty, election duty, BLO duty and various other time to time surveys . The paper work is also not less, one or two teachers spent whole day to prepare statements regarding expenditures, MDM, strength of students, their category, their social background, staff statement etc. Even teachers are not being spared from school construction work, who have to keep a proper check on construction of buildings and repairment and to certify the quality of work done by executor.
The fact has remained that government teachers come forward every time when their need arises. Apart from their prime duty as teaching government school teachers serve the society from every possible front, the proof is before you when they volunteerlycame forward to offer their services to help authorities to combat covid-19, otherwise it was not their job.
In nutshell, instead of playing a blame game, and raising finger on government school teachers who are well qualified and highly experienced, better is to ensure every needed facility, empower teacher, ensure rationalisation, desist from issuing unnecessary orders from time to time Information, exempt teachers from all time killing non-teaching assignments including MDM-by outsourcing it. That way, a better teaching learning environment could be ensured in government schools.
