Comments on: Why rural teachers do not need a pay rise

By: Sameera

Sameera — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 05:51:51 +0000

With Kapil Sibal’s rising concern about government school syllabi, elite grad colleges and new policies, one would expect the situation of edu-sys in the nation to improve in coming years of the current govt. But hey, unless we throw some light on instances, like this particuluar one, you can’t say that we’re growing in education sector. When we say teachers evaluation its not just related to the marks earned by the students but also their overall development. Its so relative, that one may not be able to test it on scale of one to ten. Online tests will reduce the cheating by students, liberal marking by teachers, partiality etc. But for that we’ll first need a very strong rooted network and infracstructure.

By: lekhni

lekhni — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:35:08 +0000

Thanks for the link! Someone was mentioning this story – was it on NPR ? – but I never found the relevant article. Yes, it’s a really heartwarming story. I wish we had more of those “Each one-Teach one” campaigns (are they still around?).

By: Kamini

Kamini — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:00:19 +0000

Agree with you completely on the need for accountability and results. The public schools here in the US also have problems, although they are nowhere as horrific as in many Indian schools. Here, the teacher’s union ensures that poorly performing teachers continue to hold on to their jobs because of the ridiculous union regulations.
On the other hand, on a truly heart-warming note, check out this link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8299780.stm
If it doesn’t move and inspire you, I don’t know what will!!

By: lekhni

lekhni — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:18:12 +0000

I may be cynical, but I believe that the government will itself never do anything unless prodded by the media and/or citizens groups. In this case, rural Indians do need to bring about change – they cannot rely too much on the media or urban Indians because unfortunately, both are clueless about village issues. The good news is, the incentive for education is increasing. College level education now leads to (call center?) jobs, which was not necessarily true earlier. If we get a scenario where even high school level education in rural areas leads to employment, that is when we will see a push from villagers for better education.

By: lekhni

lekhni — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:11:13 +0000

You are right – all those issues do exist, and I’m sure there are many genuinely passionate teachers who battle the odds each day to teach. Their proportion may vary by region, but all teachers end up getting a bad name because of the bad eggs. Which was why I was thinking on the lines of an incentive system to reward the good ones and increase their pay. You’re right that long term change means tackling all the ills of rural education, and as I mention at the end of my post, I don’t think performance based pay is a panacea; it’s just a good place to start.

By: lekhni

lekhni — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:35:12 +0000

It’s even understandable if not everyone is passionate about teaching and some regard it as just another job. But is it too much to expect that people should do a job that they are being paid to do?

By: lekhni

lekhni — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:32:06 +0000

The teachers’ evaluations would be suspect, of course. But there should be some way of independently testing students. Given that most children in rural schools, even those who have attended school for a few years cannot write their own name or count to 100, testing itself should be easy, IF you can get an independent, incorruptible evaluator. As Rubicon suggests, that might be a big IF too

By: lekhni

lekhni — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:24:58 +0000

Sigh. You may be right. I was thinking in terms of spot checks by outside inspectors (not the existing govt.-employed ones) , but as you point out, once a teacher starts down the path of bribing people, how difficult is it to bribe any outside inspectors ?

By: Divya

Divya — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:21:36 +0000

I find I agree with you. But I wonder what it will take for the “government” to wake up and take some action. A lot of such evils are simple to solve yet nobody seems to be bothering. The media and everyone else are busy covering lucrative “fights”. Sigh!

By: Jina

Jina — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:02:12 +0000

While I agree that performance linked pay is a great idea (for any sector), I will have to disagree with a lot of other premises.
Yes, there are teachers who shirk work.Yes there is increasing absenteeism.Yes, there is more of it in rural areas. But we also need to acknowledge their issues.
Many travel miles to reach their schools. Lack of efficient transportation facilities makes that all the more miserable. And to top it, either there would be an abysmally low number of kids in classes or too much kids for them to handle. Either ways, its a burden which is most often ignored by authorities-the more rural and internal you are, the more so.
Many started their jobs wanting to do something worthwhile-impacting lives.But soon they get disillusioned with the system and lack of support from the authorities.Can we blame them? It is only so much you can do with internal motivation. And they are not even getting paid exorbitant sums. I have talked to a lot of teachers who spends half their salary just to get to one village and get back to their homes.

At the same time, I do think that with a more efficent monitoring system like maybe performance based pay, things might change. But if we need long term changes, the root causes have to be removed first.