This post has been self-published on Youth Ki Awaaz by Youth Ki Awaaz. Just like them, anyone can publish on Youth Ki Awaaz. Find out more
Shaheen Mistri: ‘If We Have Teachers Like These, The Future Will Definitely Be A Lot Better’
More from Youth Ki Awaaz
By Shaheen Mistri & Tomos Davies:
Prasid Sreeprakash (25) is from a middle class family in Kerala. He scored 99.86 percent in the highly competitive Common Admission Test of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and graduated from the premier Indian Institute of Management-Indore. Typically with this prized qualification, Sreeprakash could have picked a job in a company of his choice with a six figure monthly salary as most of his batch mates at IIM-Indore did. Instead, Sreeprakash signed up with Teach For India (TFI) which paid Rs. 16,000 (USD 245) per month, to teach children full- time as a Teach For India Fellow.
Twelve-year-old Asira Sheikh’s father earns less than Rs.1 lakh (USD 1500) in an entire year. Asira is a class IV student of the under-resourced Varsha Nagar Government School in Vikhroli, Mumbai, which draws its student body from neighbouring slums. Normally, attending this government school would have entailed an aimless, rote memorisation-driven education delivered in the vernacular Marathi or Urdu languages by inadequately trained teachers followed by dropping off studies altogether. Instead, Asira and her 30 classmates study a joyful, holistic, practical, and skills-based curriculum taught in English by Prasid Sreeprakash.
Education is a powerful tool but it is only as powerful as those who wield it. Great teachers have the ability to change the life paths of those they teach. In 2009, India passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act which, for the first time in India’s history, guarantees free elementary education to every child up to the age of 14. This historic legislation, along with other government initiatives and the work of many education non-profits in the sector, has helped India significantly increase primary school enrolment rates. However, with the increasing number of children in schools there is a huge need for additional teachers and some estimates indicate that the requirement may be as great as 1 million new teachers to meet the shortfall.
More than 770,000 untrained teachers are working in India’s state schools, according to government figures, with education experts suggesting that one in five teaching positions is vacant. To deal with the problem, ministers have allocated USD 4.53 billion over the next five years to get more qualified teachers into the system. The sheer number of teachers required to support the changing education system in India is daunting, however, it creates an opportunity to seek out alternative methods of finding, training, supporting and developing new and existing teachers across the Indian education system. This is especially true given the traditional methods are, at present, not meeting the needs of the nation.
Beyond the numbers, it is critical that we concentrate on providing an excellent education to every child and not just basic schooling. India cannot reach its potential on the global stage without the majority of its population being skilled, educated and equipped to compete in the global knowledge economy. Infrastructure, innovation and technology all have an important role to play as catalysts to improving the educational outcomes of children but these are no substitute to a quality teacher.
The RTE Act is a great first step for the Government which will definitely benefit thousands of children; however, it is imperative we focus not only on creating a place in school for every child but also on providing each one with a capable, motivated and effective teacher.
[symple_box color=”blue” text_align=”left” width=”100%” float=”none”]
Shaheen Mistri is the CEO and one of the founding board members of Teach For India, a nationwide movement with the mission to build a movement of leaders who will eliminate inequity in education. She has been working on the idea of Teach For India since 2007, and in 2008 formally established the batch of 87 Teach For India Fellows (exceptional college graduates and young professionals from across the country) began teaching in June 2009, and committed to teach full-time for two years in under-resourced schools and to become life-long leaders, across sectors, advocating for educational equity. Today Teach For India Fellows teach in over a 1000 classrooms across the country impacting over 23,000 children.
[/symple_box]
[symple_box color=”blue” text_align=”left” width=”100%” float=”none”]
After graduating from the University of Cambridge, Tomos joined the Teach First program, where he proudly taught Science for two years in a Government school in London. This transformative experience instilled the deep belief in him that every child can succeed when given access to an excellent education. Tomos came to Teach for India from the Teach for All Network where he worked as a Partner Engagement Director since early 2010. He remains an active Teach First Ambassador.
[/symple_box]
You must be logged in to comment.
Tanima Banerjee
I agree with you Shaheen. I am extremely disappointed with the state of affairs in education and the dirth of young and educated teachers. The profession of teaching is at an alarming state since very few actually opt for anything beyond an high-end jobs. A salute to your brilliant campaign to revert the scenario. I loved the latest promotional video of your campaign. Found it extremely appealing and touching. Keep up the good work.
Naveenkumar m
Prasid Sreeprakash did this because he does not want to loose his soul.He loves his soul.He is indeed on a pursuit of finding reason for his birth.I appreciate him for having taken such wise decision and a better road for his destination.
Kulbir Singh
I even agree with your thought SHAHEEN,I quited my job 1 year back and since then trying to work in the field of education. I am an Ex ICICI Employee but the Idea of entering education came to my mind when I was giving training to a bunch of MBA students from a leading college of INDORE and found their standard way below expectation. Every single one barring 1-2 in the whole batch were just THEORETICAL and in the world of FANTASY.Since then I decided to take charge if i needed to change the level and started giving lectures as a visiting faculty in some of colleges in Indore and still in Raipur where I currently reside.
Over the past 2-3 years the biggest gap which I believe that exists in the system, which we need to focus is the approach towards our education system .The people who are entering into the stream need to be held accountable for the performance.Teaching is the only sales stream if I could say is where the COMPANY is always held responsible for product not being sold and the SALESMAN nearly escapes every blame for nonperformance . We need to stop blaming the children, his low level of understanding and various excuses which teachers make for poor performance of child and take charge of the approach and innovation into this stream.
Most of the people entering this stream is because of the safety of job and specially for govt ones as it pays well with no focus on quality and content. I can give you hundred of example where a maths teacher might not even know simple BOD MAS , and if you ask them what does “O” stands for they are just blank .
We need to accept that we have failed to bring real life relevance to our content and approach which is the need of hour, I remember when I was in my class 9, I was really convinced by my teacher that I was “DUFFER” in maths and I was so much afraid of this subject that i used to freeze sometime and the only reason I was afraid because nor the teacher nor the content were speaking my language to make me understand. I am a Visual and Kinesthetic person and like to see and do things to understand them, but nor my teacher nor my school was concerned about my approach the only thing they were was a good fees that too on time 🙂 , I don’t blame my teacher, its because i believe he too might have never come across any different approach than we use traditionally. My only concern is that he was not held accountable for my performance which might have pulled him back for innovating for me rather than blaming me.
Its a TWITTER age where a message in conveyed in 120 Characters , gone are the days of long words and sentences.What we need is a “FISSION”.We need to just stop focusing TEACHING “FOR” THINKING and start teaching our Kids TEACHING “OF” THINKING if we need survive. I am currently working on a Reasoning Lab project for class 4-8, and its really exciting when children come up with reasons for their approach and actions taken by them.Seeing the thought process and approach I believe we really need to go Several several miles and that too at a greater speed to fill the gap of where the TECHNOLOGY is advancing where the WORLD is moving and where the Decision Making skills of our children are.
We really need to work on building this aspect if we need to Improve our System. CRITICAL THINKING needs to be a necessary subject and Approach to teach every subject otherwise we just will become a manufacturing hub of a large chunk of “EDUCATED FOOLS” with no idea of what to do and why to do except always saying “YES” to anything to ask them to do.