Teachers’ responsibilities

It is very unfortunate that teachers have to take to the streets to win their legitimate demands, particularly at a time like this when the whole country is fighting a pandemic, the economy is in a grave crisis and the government is contemplating education reforms. All these issues must surely bother the good teachers whose profession is among the noblest. But the way they behave on the roads, shouting slogans, like harbour workers on strike, is not the stuff of noble professions and cannot be condoned, for they must set an example to their students. Good governments must not allow the situation to deteriorate to such a low level.

A noble profession must treat its beneficiary subjects, whether they are patients, students or the general public, as priority above all other considerations. But when professionals find it difficult to make ends meet they forget their professional ethics. Can anybody blame them? Good governments must not force professionals to resort to unprofessional action. The present crisis, regarding salaries of teachers, is apparently 24 years old! The problem should not have been dragged on for 24 years. However, one cannot help but feel that after 24 long years, teachers have taken to the streets at the most inopportune time.

One must also raise the question whether teachers are doing their duty by their students. Most of them engage in private tuition. The syllabus has been made unnecessarily bulky and to make matters worse much of the syllabus is not taught at school, thereby forcing students to take private tuition. Paradoxically, in these private tutories, it is very often the same teachers, who should have taught the lesson at school, who teach it for a fee. Dr. Uswatte Arachi once said in these columns that, “The whole phenomenon of private tuition is a foul scar on the profession of teaching in our country.” Indeed it is. This vicious circle starts very early and gains in intensity when the child sits competitive examinations; first at Grade 5 when the child is only 10 years old, then at GCE O Level and finally at GCE A Level. The syllabus for each of these examinations, are unbelievably enormous. This is meaningless, to say the least. It is impossible and unnecessary to keep all that stuff in one’s head. The capacity to cram all that stuff is not a measure of intelligence, competence or any other virtue necessary to be a good useful human being.

Have these teachers done anything to reform the school curricula and make it more suitable to meet the educational requirements of students. They should have taken the initiative to bring about school curriculum reforms. It is they who see the poor students coming to school bent under the weight of the heavy school bag, symbolic of the heavy burden students, parents and teachers carry. It is they who know the irrelevance of what they teach. They know the damage to students’ psychological constitution that could be caused by forcing them to learn stuff that nobody needs. Yet they go on. Teachers demanded that they be allowed to conduct private classes during the pandemic.

This highly commercialised activity unfortunately, preys on many a child. The syllabus, intentionally or not, is made as wide as possible to cater to the tuition master and not the child. No attempt is made either by the authorities, educationists, principals or teachers to design a syllabus to suit the child, his or her interests, curiosity, problem solving ability and self learning capability. Everything has to be poured by the tuition master into the child’s head for a fee. Larger the syllabus, larger the fee. Further, childhood is not allowed to blossom. Children have no time to do what they enjoy doing. A child who grows up in this environment is bound to end up either a psychological wreck, or a brutalized adult motivated by selfishness and pecuniary considerations. We have many such human caricatures in our society, specially in Parliament. This maybe one reason we do not have good politicians and leaders.

On the other hand if the country is to be benefited by the expertise of a profession, the members of the profession must receive adequate remuneration for their efforts. Otherwise the temptation would arise to engage in unprofessional practices in order to meet pecuniary needs. Several noble professions in this country have experienced such unfortunate circumstances. Such unfortunate situations should be avoided at any cost.

Similarly all professional bodies must endeavour to raise their standards in every respect. They must not stoop so low as to make unethical gains and must always give priority to their duty by the public. It is good if teachers could stay off the streets in this hour of great peril. They could easily cause the pandemic to spread like wildfire, which would make life difficult for everybody including them. All major COVID-19 waves have been caused by large gatherings like the ones that striking teachers produce. They set a very poor example to their students. The government must make haste to solve these problems and also refrain from attempting to enact controversial laws like the KNDU Act which tend to cause reactions which are undesirable and unaffordable at this juncture.

N. A. de S. Amaratunga