quality of college teachers

The quality of college teachers- A critical factor  in the higher education reform process 

 

According to a report by ASSOCHAM, Indian students going abroad for higher studies cost a foreign exchange outflow of $10 billion annually, an amount sufficient to open 20 engineering and management colleges   in India. Over US$ 13 billion is spent every year by about 450,000 Indian students enrolled in higher education abroad. Why do they go? It is not only for jobs abroad, but also mainly for international environment, better research amenities, flexibility in choice of subjects and wider choice of courses, practical oriented learning methods, high quality of faculty and the state of the art facilities. These are missing in many colleges in India.’ Almost two-third of our universities and 90% of our colleges are rated as below average on quality parameters,” Prime Minister Singh once revealed.

A vital indicator to ascertain the global standard of the universities in any country is the number of foreign students enrolled in them and their position in the international ranking. China has emerged as the number-one choice for students who want to study in Asia.. Beijing University has emerged as one of the top 20 universities in the world. It is a sad commentary on our higher education sector that  the  recent evaluation of universities and research institutes all over the world, conducted by a Shanghai university, has not a single Indian University is  in the world's top 300 . However,   China has six.

The HRD ministry is worried about the dissatisfactory quality of our colleges and hence has introduced   series of reforms with the guidance of the Knowledge Commission in recent times. The   introduction of all the sophisticated western tools of     higher   education,    the establishment of additional regulatory bodies and   higher the flow of fund to this sector have not yielded the expected results. The employers say 65% of the graduates are unemployable, because, there is huge gap between what is expected from the employees   and what they are capable of contributing

A critical factor  in the reform process is the quality of the faculty. The government is not blind to the  need to improve the quality of the college teachers and taken many measures, such as increasing the salary of the teachers through the  6th pay commission , so that teaching  becomes  attractive to brilliant minds . Strict provisions for recruitment,   orientation and refresher courses, academic freedom in restructuring of the syllabi, academic auditing, Performance Based Assessment System (PBAS) and the pass in the eligibility tests etc.,   have been introduced to improve faculty quality. . UGC has sent the  PBAS proforma to all varsities which will also be free to devise their own PBAS based on it. Teachers will be able to offer themselves for assessment for promotion once they fulfill minimum API scores. They will also be able to get increments to the tune of 3 per cent of the Academic Grade Pay (AGP) -- as outlined under the Sixth Pay Commission. State governments have also been asked to amend their relevant Acts within six months to enable implementation of these regulations. Lot of changes has come into the recruitment process too. Yet the result is not as per the expectations .

The expectations of the students and the administrators regarding teacher’s performance are very high. The teachers are expected to be the  reservoir of knowledge in there respective subjects by constantly upgrading their knowledge through various sources,   use latest pedagogic method than relying on uninspiring rhetoric, show interest in molding the personality of the students  through encouragement for  co curricular and extra curricular activities, create a vibrant class room atmosphere through participative learning method than teacher centric method, encourage original contribution by students and thereby kindle logical reasoning, analytical skills, and enquiring mind  and  inculcate reading habit among them .. The students feel such teachers only will make their college education productive and prepare them for the competitive job market.  

 However, the ground realty is very different. Higher percentage of the college teachers does not possess these skills or the interest to engage themselves with these roles. . The orientation and refresher courses, the eligibility test like NET and SLET, PhD degree, and participation in seminars do not guarantee high quality of teaching . How many of the teachers have chosen teaching due to aptitude for it  and relish the idea of accountability? Is not window dressing adopted on a large scale for better grade in self-appraisal and accreditation procedures? How many of the teachers are using   the treasure of knowledge available in the internet to provide latest information to the students, do extra reference for  lectures, present original and high quality   papers to the journals and seminars? Do thay give   practical orientation to their theoretical presentation? What care is given to test the communication skill, aptitude for innovative teaching methods while recruiting teachers? It would be disastrous if we appointed anyone who just came along and if corruption plays a role in the recruitment of teachers.

“A bad teacher is like a time bomb, because they would only continue to generate sub-standard students for decades”. No responsible administration should tolerate this situation. Teachers are the main link in the educational reform process. They are the field workers and have direct contact with students. Nobility is still attached to their profession and they are in charge of molding the character and knowledge level of the youthful population. There is no use of having major share of youthful population if they are not of high quality.

The teachers should remember that the born teacher concept is outdated. An ordinary teacher can become an excellent teacher and then turn into an out standing teacher with dedication towards their profession. Teachers forever should be learners and impart that knowledge gained to the students with clarity and thought provoking manner. Original contribution by students should be recognized and encouraged. More concentration is needed on participative learning process. . The teachers should talk to the students about the changing world scenario in economic, political, and social matters.

 The following measures might help in improving the quality of the teachers.

·        The introduction of some mechanism through which teachers performance appraisal done efficiently and accountability established.

·        The syllabus, which is not industry-friendly currently, should be modified. The teachers and industry associations like CII, FICCI should interact and find out what is missing in the syllabus. Nomination of industry representatives in the board of studies  should not  be a window dressing exercise.

·        Many supervisory bodies like AICTE unwisely assume that once a teacher completes Ph D, he / she automatically becomes an expert teacher. In reality, there is no direct correlation between research and teaching ability.  This point should be noted while further reforms are introduced.  

·        Even the refreshers courses and orientation courses cannot achieve their purpose unless the concentration is on the latest pedagogic methods than on monotonous guest lectures.

·        The government should rethink on the utility of the eligibility tests in assessing efficiency of the teachers. The best thing to do is to assess the teacher’s quality at periodic intervals. If the assessment reveals poor quality, performance counseling should be given, grace period for betterment allotted and suitable action taken after the next assessment if the same position continues.

·        The teacher student ratio also should be regularised .

The teachers would say that with autonomy, their work burden has multiplied due to the need to create and   maintain innumerable records to please the regulatory and inspecting bodies, which have multiplied, and their energy is spent more on non-academic matters. Even the recent performance assessment system is going to result in creation and maintenance of innumerable records and that will further cut down their concentration on classroom activities, where the students are waiting with altogether different type of expectations. The   teachers form the final link in the hierarchy of the higher education and they are the field workers. They feel that  sweeping reforms are introduced after consulting only the  education ministers and vice chancellors and without listening to the ground realities faced by the teachers.They are not involved  in the decision making process of the  higher education sector .Unless the grievances of the teachers and the students are  rectified , the goal of attaining global competency cannot be achieved .