WHO SHOULD TEACH? (From my column in Deccan Herald).
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For decades, we've known that the education system in the country is badly broken. Fewer than half the children complete school, and many in college are merely going through the motions. None of this is new.

What is new is an Education Policy. The NEP, some educationists say, accepts there are many things that need to be changed. They point out that for the next twenty years we can expect this new vision to dominate the landscape of education policy and implementation.

News articles have picked up the key phrases - pre-primary learning, inclusion, vocations, emphasis on foundational literacy and numeracy, etc. And another set for higher ed - multidisciplinary education, balance between research & teaching, credit banks for courses, and so on.

But will any of this work? Unlikely.

The reason is quite simple. It's fairly easy to write a document that details what things should be done. It's much harder to figure out who should do them, and make that happen.

The core problem in our education system is that it discourages teaching, and until we change that, all the other things we do will not make one whit of difference to the poor learning outcomes we now see. The 'who' problem is the crux of it.

The NEP's 'emphasis on foundational literacy and numeracy' tells a story. It's an admission that these most basic thresholds that every child should meet have not been met. But no one is asking why. More importantly, no one is asking who failed at this.

Governments love a system in which they alone decide who should teach, and how. And to ensure this they have set up two certification systems - one for deciding who should be allowed to teach, and another for deciding who should hand out school-leaving certificates and degrees.

Let's start with teacher certification. In the public schools these are more or less mandatory, and even in the private sector, invariably those who are teaching get a B.Ed. at some point. And that's not bad - after all, we don't want children to be taught by unqualified people.

But there's another side to this. There are plenty of people who would love to teach, but don't want to get certified to do so. We are losing out on a pool of talent that is interested in teaching itself, but is not motivated enough to clear a course to do it.

We could say, that's their choice. Teaching is a responsibility, and there has to be a system of deciding who is suitable and who is not. Those who are serious about teaching should accept that responsibility.

That is correct, but it doesn't mean they have to accept it in the way the government wants them to. Plus, we have a shortage of teachers. If the certification is limiting the number of those who choose the profession, we have to rethink it.

Look at one other thing - certification is considered extremely important for someone to teach 12th std, but not at all required to teach 13th std - the first year of college. How is it ok to say only a certified teacher can teach a student in April, but anyone can teach in June?

The slide from deciding who teaches to deciding who has been taught is seamless. Kids who go to schools and are taught by certified teachers are considered graduates. On that basis they are admitted to universities and a few years later, they are given one more piece of paper.

This was sufficient for govts as long as no one could opt out and still get an education. But that's changing. The main motivation for the NEP is not a sudden interest in education. Instead, it worries govts that the way kids learn is getting away from their certification-raj.

People are learning online, from each other, and on their jobs. And the would-be teachers who didn't want to bother with certification are the ones providing these increasingly popular alternatives. Employers are also finding these more credible that govt-issued certificates.

Our education system has been running on a 'check-box' model - buildings, toilets, uniforms, desks, chalk, board, benches, teachers and their salaries, a few play materials, etc. If these things are present, it is assumed that education is also present. This is a mass delusion.

This way of doing things continues in the higher education system too. Only the peculiarities of regulating university education are different from those in school education. As a result, only about 5-10% of the investment that we are making in education is productive.

For a long time, a lot of talented people who could have taught millions of students took a look at our system and decided not to be part of it. Now they have a choice. For any new policy to work, it has to start by recognising this. Education has a lot to do with who teaches.

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