KOCHI: Today, a lion-share of the country’s and state’s revenue income is spent on education. However for all the money spent on education, has it reaped dividends?
Today’s toddlers are forced to carry a huge backpack of fifteen kilograms each or more, containing texts books, notebooks, instrument box, snack and tiffin boxes, water bottle, umbrella etc weighing more than his body weight. Moreover, the quality of teachers has become unquestionable.
I visited an English medium senior secondary school where the manager was a priest. I was asked to give an orientation class to the teachers. After the introductory session we came to ‘subject-verb’ agreement. Singular and plural. I asked the lady teaching English: What is the plural for ox, madam? Her reply was ‘oxes’. I corrected her. After a long time when I incidentally met her elsewhere, I greeted her. She twisted her neck and without an acknowledgement walked away. Recently I acquainted with a teacher who could not speak a single sentence is English and she teaches history in an English medium higher secondary school near Aluva. This is the case with most of the teachers. Most of them depend upon ‘guides’ composed by half-baked pundits.
More pitiable is the plight of ‘tuition’ centers and teachers. Parents boast of their children being sent for tuition. They are either ignorant or totally unaware of the damage they inflict on the children. No ‘tuition’ centers or teachers need any approval, certification or testimonial of merit. The moment a girl gets enrolled at the Teachers’ Training Institutes, there rush up fifty students for tuition at her door step. Another deplorable profession is that of trainers. There are more trainers than the total demography today, thanks to multimedia and other gimmicks from channels like Pogo. I once watched a training program in the net. One was sponsored by a famous diocese in central Kerala. The training was imparted by a lady. A weird translation of her first two sentences of her self-introduction was:
“I started my career as a trainer twelve years ago. I am terribly (she said Bhayankara in Malayalam) happy today.”
The other gentleman gave his introduction before a huge audience: “I am from Kalady.” He gave a proud and peremptory look at the audience and asked: “What are the two important features of Kalady?” Silence for some time. Since no one ventured to answer, he himself gave the reply:
“One, Kalady is my birth place. Two, it also is the birth place of Sankaracharya.”
Good Luck friends!
— K K Shanmukhan
Former principal of ICFAI National College, Kottayam