Monday, July 23, 2012

Things studied in school get lost in colleges

Many college students have told me this. Especially from arts and science colleges. How does this happen? What was taught up to X11 is probably lost in colleges. The school teachers are, though paid less, sincere and help children to learn.

A lecturer gets Rs35,000-100,000 a month  and extra(for attending exam duty, paper valuation etc.) to engage 2- 3 periods for 120-140 days in an year! Computing the total number of hours one has to attend to duty in an year and dividing them by 8, a lecturer has to work for  30-35 days in an year to get up to Rs12,00,000! The funny part: there is no accountability. They need to go to the class and engage the students. They can give notes (they took down when they studied) or draw a diagram from the text on the board, write the syllabus to be covered for the examination, read text and ‘explain’ in a monotone or simply chit-chat. Some are least bothered whether the students talk to each other, make phone calls or eat lunch. Most do not keep abreast of the developments in their subjects, employ communication and teaching methods and naturally the classes are boring. Many of them have no aptitude to teach. UGC is only an objective type exam. Passing it does not qualify one to become a good teacher.     
  
Lecturers have private tuition or other business and earn much more. They get life-long pension (around  Rs50,000/pm) too. This is taking place in a country where an ordinary clerk (who is almost equally qualified but working 8-10 hours a day except Sundays gets around Rs5000/pm without any pension. Peasants who work for 12 hours a day and get less than Rs80/-a day!  The World Bank has remarked that Kerala university graduates are ‘unemployable.’ If youngsters do not know something they can be taught but those who undergo negative training cannot be even put to the right track. The negative example of teachers is destructive. Even without teachers, the interested students (as they do now) can still study by themselves the prescribed syllabus and get a pass mark in the university examinations which are merely memory exercises!  Most of what is studied for the examination is forgotten once the exams are over. The degree holders know very little of what is taught or studied and are good for government jobs where they need not do much. There are exceptions but that is not a merit of our educational system. 

Our teachers blame the students for being lazy and aimless. But it is good to remember that youngsters model elders and teachers. As the latter so the former. If they are not sincere in their work how can they expect the students to be sincere in their studies?

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