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Rural teachers overburdened

15 December 2009

Quality education – whose responsibility? by Jimmy S Tensing of SCE in Bhutan Observer dated June 5, 2009, has a point to be noted. His concern is of a would-be teacher. My concern is of a teacher who had been in the system for more than a decade. Jimmy opined that nothing was taking shape, and he was right. Everywhere, anywhere, people talk about quality of education.

Everyone plays the famous game called ‘blame game’. The people of tertiary institutes blame higher secondary teachers if the students are not doing well. Higher secondary teachers shift the blame to lower secondary teachers, who in turn put the ball in the community and primary teachers’ court.

If the foundation of education is important, one should know how the teachers at primary and community levels deliver, and under what circumstances. Besides infrastructural disadvantages, the community and primary schools, especially in the far-flung areas, have a shortage of trained teachers. In Shali CPS in Pemagatshel, there are seven sections from classes PP-VI and six teachers including the principal.

From time to time, the principal has to move out leaving the school with only six teachers – the teacher-section ratio 1: 1.4. I fear that there could be a worse scenario than this.

The lack of classrooms, small classroom size and large number of students do not favour multi-grade class practices.

Karma Chogyel of Shali CPS is the academic head of the school. Besides his normal teaching, he shoulders six different responsibilities which demand equal time and attention. Quality is thus compromised. Teachers are also human beings with limitations. Tshering Yangzome of Kherigonpa CPS says, ‘Most of the time, teachers get bogged down with their teaching work alone. We have additional responsibilities which really eat into our lesson preparation time. If there is one non-teaching staff in the school, we will be relieved of many duties. ’ Quality is compromised there, too.

Samten Lhamo of Khar CPS is the academic head of the school. She has 11 other responsibilities besides teaching. Some of the responsibilities do not hamper her teaching but many others do. ‘At times, I do not know what I am doing and what to do next? By the time I reach home, I get exhausted,’ says the 27-year-old Samten Lhamo, who has been in the teaching profession for almost two and a half years.

Now we understand that quality delivery is a big question at the lower level. There are two ministries which can help us address this problem. First, the education ministry needs to conduct a study at primary and community levels to find out their needs. The project like Light the Drukyul can focus on recruiting class XII graduates at the primary level.

Second, the labour ministry, which talks of generating employment opportunities for the youth, can collaborate with the education ministry to create job opportunities in the schools.

There are many high school graduates seeking jobs. Recently, in Pemagatshel Dzongkhag, four vacancies were announced for the post of office assistants for which 100 applications were received. It indicates that there are people in want of jobs, and there are jobs.

Teachers and schools need support from all. People expect us to deliver quality education. But some parents and guardians even go to the extent of telling us that teachers are not allowed to scold the students! Teachers and students spend almost nine months together. Being humans, sometimes unexpected situations crop up.

If we keep on pointing fingers at each other instead of understanding the situation and helping one another, I cannot see any light at the end of the finishing line for students, parents, teachers or educators of the nation. What should we do? How can we help our children in building their futures? How can you expect us to perform well when there are so many restrictions? Teachers are the direct persons who deal with pupils.

They know what to do. Whatever we do, we do it for our children. People who have never been in the shoes of teachers should give a serious second thought before they comment on anything about teachers.

Otherwise, some of the teachers might simply teach the syllabus content and forget about the values and Bhutanese etiquettes. I understand that today both are equally important to our children.

By Yang T Dorji
Nangkor,
Pemagatshel

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Posted by Bhutan Observer · Filed Under Voices 

Comments

One Response to “Rural teachers overburdened”

  1. karm on December 22nd, 2009 7:08 pm

    yea..i agree to this isuue thet teachers in the remote schools hv become axis of everting.. Thy hv their major responsibility to compromise theyr teching quality by preparing daily lesson plans,assessments n up on des they r overburdened by others works..guess who hv never been in the soop of techers..taste how they suffer….listen how they r tormented. n sense how much they r troubled…

    When the quality of education becomes bench mark issue..balme direclty comes to techers despite the fact that the trouble they take….If this is so ..how abot the system..how abo the curriculum designers n how abpt the community support…dont look at the river side n feel the ground thet u stand….

    so dont points ur fingers to techers…look at u n understand de jest they take…

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