With schools and tuition centre popping up on every nook and corner of our city, the demand for teachers has also increased. More and more people are getting into this profession. UNESCO Institute for Statistics projects that by 2030 countries would need 3.3 million teachers for their classrooms.
With schools and tuition centre popping up on every nook and corner of our city, the demand for teachers has also increased. More and more people are getting into this profession. UNESCO Institute for Statistics projects that by 2030 countries would need 3.3 million teachers for their classrooms. This sounds great and promising for new and aspiring teachers but it also brings with it some grotesque trends which are destroying the face of the teaching profession.
One common thing that is painful to hear is that teaching is something which anyone can go for. No matter what qualification a person has, one can easily get a job as a teacher. Private schools and tuition centres have been successful in setting this trend. Many low-cost private schools find it comfortable to hire young girls with either matriculation and or high schooling as teachers who aren’t really interested in further education and only mean to pass time and earn some money. Can a person who is completely de-motivated and is not interested in his/her own education transfer the love for learning in the students? A teacher of a local school frankly shared why she had opted for teaching as profession, “I couldn’t study further because I didn’t get good grades in the intermediate, so I joined this school”. This insight clearly shows that our nation’s future is at stake. We still have competent teachers around but in a rush to make money many private schools are utilizing people who don’t even possess appropriate qualification. The national education policy (2009) says that a Bachelor’s degree, with a B.Ed. is the minimum requirement for teaching at elementary level and a Master’s degree for secondary level.
In fact, teaching is also not being considered as a real profession. Almost in all the fields, professional training is offered to the students along with their studies. Like, it’s a norm that the business, engineering or psychology students go for internships in their respective fields as soon as they reach their final year. Medicine requires one year of house job before you really become a doctor. But the one who wishes to teach doesn’t find any place for getting on hand training, because of which many people, no matter how much subject knowledge they have, find it difficult to teach. Thanks to University of Karachi, there is now a separate department for teacher education. But that’s not enough and more should be done to bring out real teachers in the market.
Teaching is also now seen as a refuge for the people who are not able to get a lucrative job in their respective fields. An engineer major shares her experience of how she ended up teaching in a school after her unsuccessful job hunt: “It gives me pain to think about how I failed to a get job in my relevant field. Then I decided to give up and started teaching Maths and English.” Similarly, a teacher with Master’s in Microbiology laments and says, “I wanted to work in a laboratory where I could apply my knowledge as a microbiologist, but my parents don’t want me to work in labs as they find them unsuitable for girls. So, I am teaching science in a school, and my parents are ok with this.” It is not possible to teach effectively when your desire to teach is not driven by passion and love for teaching.
To add insult to injury, it is further being reinforced that teaching profession is for lazy people as they enjoy less working hours and numerous holidays. Only the dedicated and passionate teachers could tell us how much time and energy a teacher gives to his/her profession. A teacher of a private school said, “Teaching is a 24-hours job; the work we do at school is one thing and the time we spend in checking notebooks, lesson planning at home is another. Even when you are apparently free, your thoughts are still on it.”
Teachers are overloaded with extraneous work and are under extreme pressure of meeting several deadlines. Schools usually expect teachers to teach several different subjects at the same time maintain records, maintain discipline, counsel, arrange co-curricular activities etc. This pressure ultimately affects the quality of teaching, a mentally exhausted teacher can’t effectively teach in the class which is a great loss for the students. The saddest thing is that the teachers aren’t ready to raise voice against the injustice they are facing; instead, they vent out their anger and frustration on the students. This is also one of the reasons behind the culture of corporal punishment. Though various incidents have been brought under light by media, but still whenever and wherever possible teachers abuse students if not physically then psychologically which is equally injurious for the students. Sadly, 70% of the teachers in Pakistan still believe corporal punishment is an effective tool in teaching students. A student recalled how easily her well-experienced and qualified English teacher referred students as “bloody fools” whenever they misbehaved. And teachers reportedly yell at their students and they often call them “duffer and dumb”, which is a serious blow to their self-esteem. A frustrated teacher expels out his/her frustration on the poor consumers (students).
Feminization of the teaching profession is another thing; according to UN statistics majority of teachers in the world are women. Unfortunately, in our patriarchal society this thing is also not taken positively. As women are demeaned, the teaching profession is also looked down upon. This has become a general trend that the private schools prefer hiring women over men because they could be paid with low salaries and can be oppressed in various ways. Men are vehemently discouraged, if they plan to teach as they are supposed to earn higher salaries.
Teaching can’t be a successful career path for people who don’t have the passion and love for teaching. Teaching is now being taken for granted though it is a serious thing; a teacher has to take on the responsibility for making a nation. The educational institutes and teachers should work together to save the face of the teaching profession so that new and bright people could proudly and confidently opt for teaching as their career. The soaring number of schools can’t guarantee an educated Pakistan until and unless the teaching profession is given back its integrity and value.
