What makes even the poor people send their children to private
schools in India?
Every year thousands of well qualified teachers are recruited by various state
governments and they are are paid high amounts of salaries. In spite of taking thousands
of teachers into service to strengthen and expand the education network why do people
prefer to send their wards to schools owned by private managements? Well, I believe
that the main difference between the teachers who work with government run schools
and their counterparts in private schools is- the teachers with government schools, once
they get the job they feel absolutely secure and they neither feel the need of improving
their skills nor they feel like keeping themselves abreast of the latest developments in
the profession. As a result, their knowledge fast becomes obsolete and they slowly grow
inefficient. As there isn't much pressure to perform in classroom and deliver goods, they
show lackadaisical approach towards their profession and start doing side businesses
like real estate or insurance advisory. Once they become busy with their extra curricular
activities, they neglect their responsibilities towards the student community.
In sharp contrast to this the teachers who work with private schools always feel insecure
and out of that feeling, they engage themselves in constant and continuous improvement
to grow strong. They are also subjected to tremendous pressure by their superiors and
they work under the shadow of continuous monitoring. As there is intense competition
among private schools, they are more receptive to experimentation with modern
methods in teaching. There are some school managements who think very progressively
and give academic freedom to their staff in introducing new methods in teaching. Gone
are the days when the teachers were strictly advised to stick to the prescribed syllabus
but these days going beyond the textbooks has become a fad in teaching. Taking students
on field trips, activity based learning or learning by doing have become part of the
teaching learning process.
I started my teaching career with a private Residential Public school. While I was
working there we were put through continuous in house training by our management.
Experienced teachers from an organization called School Net India Limited would visit
our school once in every weak and share their ideas in latest technologies in imparting
education.They named the program as TAL (Technology Aided Learning). Moreover the
government schools, thought they have high salary drawing teachers they don't have the
required infrastructure facilities.
There are many irregularities reported in the procurement of teaching aids and sports
equipment. But private schools on the other hand spend lot of money on infrastructure
and create the facilities required to make learning easy and enjoyable. When I was
working with the school, our principal would always talk about developing rounded
personality among the students and to achieve that he invested a large amount of money
on infrastructure expansion. According to Howard Gardener's Multiple Intelligence
Theory there are seven intelligences- namely linguistic, logical, intra-personal,
interpersonal, kinesthetic, musical and spacial. He created all the facilities like a Lingua
phone facility, a prayer room, many social gatherings and interaction with high profile
personalities like Yandamoori Veerendranath (well known writer), Chukka Ramaiah (IIT
guru) and Pattabhiram (Psychologist). He expanded sports infrastructure and recruited
teachers for music, painting and other performing arts. The main intention is to bring
about overall improvement among the students.
The qualifications that were required to join as a teacher in that school were graduation
in the relevant discipline, good command over the subject, teaching experience esp
ability to deal with students in a matured manner, and good communication skills. A
B.Ed degree was desirable but not compulsory.
Our leaders take to deception by raising slogans like India Shining or India is on the way
to become a super power etc. But I think we have to go a long way before we start
shining. The deadly trio-the politicians, criminals and bureaucrats are bent on destroying
all the important institutions and amassing wealth. The kind of corruption that is
reported in newspapers made me feel saddened and the deterioration in standards is the
direct result of the systematic destruction of the institutions with the intention of making
people lose trust in them which eventually paves the way either for their closure or
making them subservient to the interests of the above mentioned trio.
Visionary leaders never neglect their human resources. The best way of investing
money is investing on human resources. So the social infrastructure like eduction and
public health should never be neglected, but that is what exactly is happening in our
country esp. In the state of Andhrapradesh.
