Teachers form the backbone of society in a country like India. The teacher’s duty is not only to impart education but also to instill values and morals in the young mind. They shoulder the daunting task of shaping the future generation and making them responsible citizens.
But pursuing this noble profession is no easy feat. There are many problems faced by teachers in India. Below are a few such issues.
Challenges within the classroom:
● Lack of time for planning: In the past, simply completing the syllabus in the prescribed time was sufficient. But nowadays teachers need to don many hats. Their job role has expanded to include different responsibilities such as conducting excursions, creating and making presentations, modifying the curriculum, keeping abreast with the latest trends and patterns of examinations, and so on. Thus, they often fail to find the time required to plan for all these tasks.
● Additional responsibilities from school administrators: Often, school authorities tend to burden the teachers with a myriad of other jobs such as updating student progress, preparing statistics, and so on. This leads to immense paperwork and the investment of a lot of time apart from teaching.
● Catering to different learning needs: Each student has a different pace at which he learns. Every ward has different learning goals and aspirations. Hence the job of a teacher includes employing different teaching methodologies to get through to each student.
● Lack of creative freedom: The Indian classroom is often designed to strictly follow the curriculum, and often passing the examination gains precedence over learning something new. For teachers who are creative-minded and tend to employ innovative techniques in their classroom, it becomes a constraint. Often their diverse teaching mechanism is misconstrued as deviation from the curriculum by the school administration as well as the parents of the ward.
Challenges outside the classroom:
Life outside the classroom is no cakewalk for teachers. There are also many problems faced by teachers in India outside the classroom. Listed below are some of them.
● Lack of technological support: In the current pandemic situation, virtual classrooms are the new normal. In this scenario, many teachers lack the technology for conducting online classes. Many have had to purchase new laptops, obtain Wifi connections from their earnings, thus burning a hole in their pockets.
● Lack of time for themselves: Due to the taxing daily routine of the teachers and the increasing work pressure, they hardly have any time to themselves. Performing multiple duties often tends to tire them out, and this adversely affects their family life.
● Keeping up with the latest trends: Nowadays, students have a different attention span from what they had a few years ago. These days, teachers need to upgrade themselves from time to time by learning about any new developments in their field.
They must be aware of the latest assessment techniques and teaching methodologies. Hence teachers have to spend a lot of time researching thesame in their own free time.
● National Education Policy: National Education Policy 2020 is set to radically transform the Indian education scenario. Teachers shall have to review their teaching methodology and conform to the 5+3+3+4 curriculum. Under this policy, all educators must take 50 hours of Continuous Professional Development workshop each year.
The above issues highlight the need for proper training of the teaching faculty of Indian schools. The government should also do its bit to alleviate the problems faced by teachers in India by putting in place proper guidelines and practices.
Only then will the educators feel empowered and be equipped both mentally as well as in the technological aspect and shall be ready to devote their fullest to this noble profession.
