Teachers have significant role

By M L Satyan

Coimbatore, Sept 4, 2025: Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan dedicated his life to teacher, in the role of a president, an educationalist, an academic and a leader.

He requested that his birthday, September 5, should not be observed as a personal celebration, but instead, to be dedicated to honor the teachers of the country. The tradition began in 1962, when the Government of India declared Dr Radhakrishnan’s birth anniversary as Teachers’ Day

Each year as India celebrates Teachers’ Day with fanfare and epiphany by glorifying this noble profession with expressions of gratitude, I simply wonder why this admiration dies down for the rest of the year.

Poet Kabir narrated the importance of teachers in his couplet: “Guru and God both are here to whom should I first bow? All glory be unto the guru, path to God who did bestow.”

Unfortunately, these gurus have become the scapegoat for all lacunas that our education system is plagued with. This brings to an important question as to why teachers are not respected in India and what daily battles they wage for survival irrespective of whether they are working in a government school or an international curriculum school.

Yasmeen Hossain, a teacher, lists certain major problems and challenges faced by Indian teachers in the classroom and outside:

• Teaching is not considered as one of the most sought-after careers in India. This stems from the general perception that people harbor about this profession which is, that anyone can become a teacher as it takes minimal skill and is nothing but glorified baby-sitting.
• Teaching is one of the most underpaid jobs barring some schools which strictly adhere to Pay Commission scales. Even appreciation in form of financial incentive is not a very popular culture. These problems are not restricted to government or low-cost private schools but also to posh international schools were the average annual fee structure of a student ranges from 6 to 10 lakhs. The school management and board of directors mostly prefer cheap labour.
• The biggest irony lies in the fact that these schools celebrate Women’s Day with great pomp and splendour even though more than 90% of the women workforce in these schools are financially dependent on their husbands for expenditure like car loan, education loan etc as their salary is almost one tenth of what their husbands earn in MNC.
• The general Indian mentality believes that privatization is the solution to everything dysfunctional in our country. This public perception stems from the status quo that an Indian family enjoys when they send their children to these ‘Modern temples of education’ which have air-conditioned classrooms, buses and infrastructure equivalent to a five-star resort like tennis court, swimming pool etc.
• Most such elite private schools are established by real estate developers or politicians who do not have an iota of idea what education is all about. For them education is nothing but a means to amass a huge fortune.
• Teachers do not have a voice and have no say about educational policy. The concept of motivated teacher is also a flawed one because most of them feel that a motivated teacher is one who is regular to school every day, follows official protocols blindly without questioning and if necessary, provide information that management team wants. The real focus shifts from student learning outcomes to complying orders as found fit by the administrative department relegating teachers to a mere stature of puppets who have no voice.
• After the implementation of RTE (Right to Education), which again many private schools have not wholeheartedly accepted, the classrooms have become more diverse and multi-ethnic and multi-lingual. Teachers lack the skills to manage such diversity in class. Training programmes are designed keeping in view the situation existing in urban schools and problems faced by teachers like high teacher student ratio or multi grade teaching are hardly discussed.
• Teaching can be demoralizing for many reasons — demotivated students, helicopter parents, disorganized administration, lack of financial incentive, lack of prestige in our society for teachers, etc. Add to it the fact that most teachers return back home and spend their quality personal time and weekends marking notebooks, planning lessons, grading answer scripts etc. This means by the end of the day a teacher is mentally and physically exhausted leaving neither any time to pursue a hobby nor any time to socialise with friends except to recharge themselves.
• A teacher is expected to project a ‘perfect teacher’ image. She is required to epitomize calmness and behave like conservative moral police. Society puts this immense pressure on teachers as if their every decision, act, and word can inspire or devastate students. If a student fails, it is the teacher’s fault. If a student succeeds, then it is the achievement of the student alone. Teachers shoulder all the responsibility, but get little recognition or appreciation for their students’ achievements.

We all have read the ‘Story of an Eagle’ in which a Naturalist plays a crucial role in making the young eagle to fly. We need to put a teacher in the place of the Naturalist and the student in the place of the eagle. In today’s education system the students are locked up in a poultry farm like school where they are rarely taught to understand their potentials, skills, talents and abilities. Their true self remains unknown.

Hence, a Naturalist teacher must do the following:
 Recognize and respect the individuality of students
 Be available, accessible and approachable
 Have love for nature
 Have love and compassion for students
 Dialogue with students and parents
 Demonstrate assertiveness
 Set a high target for students and continue to motivate them
 Have self-confidence and place confidence in the students
 Be open, honest and fair in every dealing
 Do continuous experiments and work hard
 Create conducive atmosphere for growth
 Give encouragement and recognition to every student
 Act consistently
 Give needed information to students to do their jobs
 Impart training effectively
 Accept mistakes and initiate corrective measures
 Keep focused through proper follow-ups
 Take up risks and challenges
 Make sacrifices to achieve the goal
 Display tolerance and flexibility
 Take ownership for students’ decisions
 Have a clear vision and dream for the students

The former President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said, “Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, calibre, and future of an individual.”

May the teachers in our society understand this truth and feel proud of their noble profession of character building! Let the teachers exercise this role with greater responsibility!