"GURU"
Only a real scholar, proven master, spiritually enlightened person, was recognized,
appointed, and respected as Guru. As you know, India has a very old (Guru Shishya) tradition. For his selfless service, teacher, the Guru, was held
teacher in a very high esteem by the society and was respected by even
kings. He was revered more than parents and enjoyed a unique status, even higher
than that of gods:
"Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu Gururdevo Maheshwara! :
Guru Sakshat Parambrahma Tasmai Shree Guruve Namah!!"
The Guru was an epitome of good qualities of head, heart and hand, spirituality,
knowledge, scholarship. A true teacher was supposed to be a student till the end
of his life. It is like our concept of teacher- a lifelong learner. He was “Guide
by the side”, not the “Sage on the stage.”
Gurus were an institution by themselves- famous for their scholarship and
sacrifices. The students all over the world used to get attracted to reputed Gurus
in India. When the number of students was large, the Gurus involved senior or
brilliant students in the management of teaching learning process. This provided
the much needed assistance to Guru in his work, and also provided teacher training,
opportunity for learning art of teaching to prospective teachers, under the direct
supervision of guru.
Role and Responsibilities of Guru:
In those days, Guru had to perform variety of roles for the students like parent,
teacher, scholar, missionary, a friend-philosopher and a guide. He was to pay
personal attention to the needs of the students. It was a responsibility of Guru to
see that the student develops, makes progress to the satisfaction of Guru as well
as to his own satisfaction.There used to be very intimate relationship between
teacher and the taught - like father and the son.
Teaching method was oral interaction- a dialogue between teacher and the taught.
Lectures, discourses, debates and discussions, recitation and recapitulation were
part of routine daily student life. Assessment was continuous comprehensive
assessment internally conducted by Guru.
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There is a huge difference between the two figures and the way he/she is being treated.
The present generation teacher is expected to be more like a co-learner in the group of students as a whole. At best, he/she can be a mere facilitator, mentor or a guide. Well, apart from that,if you deeply observe, you can find there's a huge difference between pen and papers work and its implementation in practice. Some teachers who deserve good jobs with good salary are being ignored and are subjected to various injustices, partiality, victimization and favoritism. Whereas, those teachers who are lacking skills are being posted with very good jobs with better salary structure.
There have been serious malpractices on the part of school management/employer/ recruiter and the teachers also in many cases.
Can you imagine what factors have been responsible for the same. Well, let's discuss a few:
- Drastic changes in the administrative system: Our country had undergone changes in terms of foreign invasion and British rule. It greatly influenced educational system of our country.
- Changes in the governmental policies: Various Education Commissions set up by the government have formulated different policies on the Educational system of the country, such as NPEs (National Policies on Education), NCF (National Curricular Framework), RTE Act, so on and so forth.
- Socio-economic and political background: These factors greatly influenced the actual role of a teacher. Those who have a strong economic and political background could use their power in the selection process of teachers' recruitment at different levels. In majority cases, both government and private schools were no exceptions to this.
Can you imagine, what must be the impact of this on the innocent life of students??? Don't they deserve good education, sincere and efficient teachers????
Well, let me share my own experience. I had started my career as a teacher in March,1996 in a private organization. After I got married in 1997, my mother-in-law started accusing me that you are bringing a lot of school tasks to complete at home, and that too,with such a low salary? [She was a little conservative woman. I used to hand over my salary to her.] She had two daughters, who were govt. school teachers. They were getting better salary, and never ever used to bring school work to home. My mother-in-law was not so literate enough to understand my situation and would complain about this so many times. She thought that I was making excuses, so as not to do other household chores. I had to write lesson plans, complete Evaluation Registers and other work till 12 o'clock at night, sometimes more than that and had to wake up at 4 am in the morning.
Anyways the point of sharing all this, is just to create awareness among the masses, how benefited were the govt. school teachers compared to private school teachers. Too painstaking a life it was day by day. I had to keep patience always and struggle hard throughout my life, keeping a hope about a better future with better job satisfaction.
But even after being in the teaching field since more than 22 years at a stretch, hardwork, honesty, integrity, sincerity and truthfulness, I have not been able to get justice from the employers/management/government agencies at different levels. All eminent educationists are kindly requested to look into the matter deeply and help towards ensuring justice to genuine teachers and take proper action towards eradicating monopoly of the employers. After all, a teacher should be a noble personality. Yet, there are some who are not sincere towards their profession.
So many years after independence, I can hear of some instances of Odisha govt. planning to take proper actions regarding why there's zero performance in govt. schools. That should be appreciated, if there will be corruption free recruitment of teachers and other actions regarding education, syllabus formation etc.
Let's hope for a better education system with all changes for the benefit of our society as a whole.
At last, all stakeholders are requested to kindly consider the prevailing issues and try to rectify those as much as possible.
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