The great strength of Indian civilisation is acknowledged in its philosophical wisdom and its leadership role in making the world understand deeper nuances of spirituality. Credit must go to the strength of the traditions evolved in the quest for knowledge and wisdom as established by the great gurus and rishis in their ashrams. Global and great universities of Taxila, Vikramshila and Nalanda emerged in this process. The knowledge quest was also consistently augmented through highly respected institutions like gosthis and vidwat parishads. All this was interrupted for reasons well recorded in history. Things were expected to change for the better after Independence, in accordance with the demands of modern times and through a radical transformation of the inherited system of education. The content, process and pedagogy of education must change continuously in a dynamic and futuristic system. The most important element that retains its primacy in knowledge quest and its generational transfer is the teacher. In the current idiom, no developing country can afford to ignore the quality of teachers as ‘no people can rise above the level of their teachers’. Somehow, it appears the Indian system of teacher preparation is sliding downwards without any visible efforts to halt the decline. Not many are shocked when media reports indicate an enrolment of 12,000 students in B.Ed. course in the BR Ambedkar University of Agra, and find 20,000 have ‘successfully’ completed it. The shocking scandal comes to light as the results were being prepared by an outside agency and the internal networking probably could not handle it ‘appropriately’. The position is that most of the seats allocated to self-financed institutions remain vacant—no regular takers. Not much is hidden about the nexus that operates, courtesy the university functionaries and private ‘entrepreneurs’ in education. In 1999, a big B.Ed scandal was unearthed in Bihar and two state universities were found involved in a fake B.Ed degree racket. These generously extended facilities to aspirants from outside Bihar also. Recently, a couple of teachers recruited in Bihar resigned as they were given the option to face inquiry for fake degrees or resign and go scot-free. Are we knowingly ensuring quality decline in school education by permitting scandalous practices in teacher preparation? What is really happening—and not happening—in teacher preparation is also evidenced by the results of Teacher Eligibility Tests (TET) conducted centrally and at state levels that indicate a success rate of 7-10 per cent only. It was also only 0ne or two per cent in some cases.
Over 92 per cent of teacher training is now being handled by self-financed private B.Ed colleges throughout India. Even the state universities and government training colleges suffer on many counts, particularly faculty recruitment and professional upgrade. The mushrooming of private B.Ed colleges continues unchecked, as do the devious practices followed by private entrepreneurs. It certainly is the responsibility of the state to ensure regulation even in private institutions. How can a state university remain unaware of excess enrolments in its affiliated colleges? In times of moral deterioration and decline in human values, the ray of hope could come only from education, educational institutions and teachers. We expect every teacher to be a ‘value inculcator’ among innocent children under his charge in schools. How can those who purchase teacher education degree be expected to become role models in schools? Can they really perform their duty of ‘moulding of the character and minds of the new generation’? No nation can improve the quality of its higher education and research if it ignores disastrous malpractices in its teacher preparation and recruitment, and fails to provide the right kind of leadership to manage institutions. A nation’s expectations from its teachers are very high. Teacher preparation systems cannot be left unguarded and unregulated in sense and spirit. The state needs to intervene in a big way, and open institutions of teacher preparation on the lines of IITs and IIMs. These could become torchbearers for others. rajput_js@yahoo.co.in
Rajput is a former director of the NCERT