Challenges of Teaching Community in 21st century – A view from Indian Mirror

Preamble

Teaching – a profession like any other or something different? Usually, we have been taught that teachers like parents are next to the god. They help you in acquiring the skills, knowledge and wisdom required in the journey of life. The teachers prepare you to contribute towards the progress of the society and the nation. They teach you to prepare for the future challenges.

Now, the question is that while being prepared for the challenges of global and competitive world, have you ever thought about the challenges they have in their life? So, what kind of challenges, they are having? The answer to this question could not be a straight forward one. Therefore, let’s understand the same with the – “Teaching Community – A narrative from Indian Context”.

As every profession has its own challenges, what compelled me now to pen down my writings over the challenges of the teaching community? The simple answer is – with the rising uncertainty and challenges due to the current pandemic situation, when everyone is concerned about the challenges being faced by the other businesses / industries, there is no one or very less to take concern over the challenges of this community.

Teaching community – one side of the coin

Now, let’s start with the two general mindsets of the society towards the teaching community. First one is that – everyone treats this as a very noble profession. This nobility could be understood through the expectations of the society from the teachers. So, what are these expectations? These expectations could be – to work with the high moral values, having no bias towards the students, working like a mentor for the all-round development of the students and many more.

It is expected from a teacher that their public behaviour should be of high ethical standard. Simply, as a teacher, you should behave like a role model for the community. Even a single or silly mistake done by a teacher gets related with the moral and ethical values of this profession. With this, I hope, you got the idea about the nobility of this profession.  At this point, I remember the words from one of my teachers that there is always a very fine line which differentiates the relation of student and teacher. If this line gets crossed by any one of them, this can cause in polluting the community.

Teaching community – another side of the coin

Now, coming over to another mindset and that is – when you have no option left for career then you choose teaching as a career. However, this mindset has rapidly grown over last 10 – 15 years, if I guess right. Before this period, this mindset was not much prevalent. The reason for the same could be understood well with the growing numbers of educational institutions in the country. With this, the demand for teachers in these institutions have also started increasing. At this point, some of this increased demand was started to be served by the individuals, who were initially not willing to grow in this field.

For such individuals, this was an option to enhance their knowledge and skills through teaching while searching for another job. Therefore, they were also not passionate enough towards the values of this community. However, with this continued pattern, the value of this community has been downgraded. More, this has majorly impacted those, who have joined this community for their passion.

How this has impacted the community?

Let’s take a look over this impact with some more details. So, when the demand of the institutions was getting fulfilled with the adequate and even more supply. The employers were also not concerned much about the values and fare work policies of this profession, as for them, this was just a business not a way to contribute to the society. More, if someone left them just for the sake of values and fare work policies, they were not affected much with the same. Why? Because, with the situation of the current market (increased unemployment) and their short-term goals, they will replace them with someone else even at a lower cost.

A teacher can do everything other than teaching

One more thing, which has affected this community is the mindset that a teacher needs to do more than just teaching. If this extra work could remain limited only to the case of upskilling themselves from the research point of view and academics, it would also be great for the betterment of the community. But this is not the actual scenario.

Actually, the teachers are now being involved in clerical and marketing activities as well. More, all this extra work is being done without giving any additional benefits to them. Simply, they are not being paid as per the norms for their services to the community.

Challenges of teaching community during lockdown

Till now, I hope, you got the point that how the values of this community have downgraded. Now, let’s come to the challenges of this community being faced during this unprecedented lockdown. As we all are aware with the heavy impact of this coronavirus pandemic over the businesses and industries. This community has also suffered a lot.

So, in this unprecedented situation, institutions with the help of teachers has served the community with the online mode of teaching, learning and assessment. This has even increased the work of teachers as most of them were not familiar with this kind of environment earlier.

More, if this work has not been increased in terms of quantity then it has atleast increased the mental workload of them. Even after doing all this, most of this community is not getting paid properly during this tough situation. In most of the cases, the primary reason behind it is not depositing the fees by the parents. In some of the cases, where fees have been deposited, the reason is the intentions of the respective employers. It means they are not intent enough to pay their employees at least for now.

Conclusive remarks

Now, if we will look at the case of fees not being deposited by the parents. So, in one way, it looks right as they are also affected by this unprecedented lockdown. But what about those, who are not depositing just to take the advantage of this situation. More, as they are demanding with government to waive off the fees completely is not a good sign for this community.

Because if the government will waive off the fees completely for a certain period. As a result, institutions will have a reason for not paying the salaries to their staff during the same. Then, who will take care of their families? But for now, no one is taking the concern of this challenging situation for this community.

There is lot more in mind but for now I think it is sufficient to make you aware about the Indian narrative of the teaching community. And for the rest, there is lot of hint in the article to the wise.

Stay pleasant, be productive.

Happy Teacher’s Day 2020

Thanks

---

Disclaimer: The views presented in this article are the author’s own views. The views are presented here just for the purpose of information. These views are not meant to harm any one’s belief / thoughts.