Communicating the message to strengthen the teacher-student links

TEACHERS: "The first week of the third month this year March 4, 2006 happens to be a red letter day to the teachers, parents and students all over the country,"said D. M. B. Tennekone, the Zone Director of Education, Western Province, Kelaniya, in an interview with this columnist on television.

"The ceremony, scheduled to take place in number of schools, is named as Viduhalpati Guru Pranama or the principal teacher felicitation and commonly known as guru puja or teacher-reverence.

This is a long standing need especially at a time like this when the role of the teacher has to be assessed in a new perspective." He commented with a synoptic view of the entire principle behind the guru puja project designed by Education Ministry officials in association with parents and students.

Though an age-old phenomenon, according to the new educational reforms taking place in our country, the role of the teacher has to be rediscovered and reassessed. Firstly the teacher has been long forgotten as moulder of the student's personality in a multi- dimensional manner. Secondly, he or she is an opinion leader of a special grade.

Thirdly the teacher is a catalyst in the attitude changes needed for the society at large. When asked to clarify these concepts further, Tennekone explained that the role of the teacher is nowadays grossly misunderstood and challenged due to more than one reason. The teacher is neglected due to the rapid social changes and the resulting outlook in the field of education.

"In the past," he commented, "as a great tradition all over the world, the teacher was honoured as a great consultant on various matters pertaining to all aspects of life, where the discipline was concerned".

Quite a number of books have been written on this subject both in prose and verse, and one good example is our age-old anonymous versification called vadan kavi potha.

But this changed perhaps due to chasing behind monetary gains in the name of development, which in turn changed the system gradually leaving the teacher-student link as 'a missing link'. In the past, many students honoured the teacher, who held the pillar of wisdom that not only helped the student to pass the examinations but also to help build a better social outlook, to make a better citizen.

Though one does not cast a frown face openly, the concept of obtaining extra tuition after the normal school hours caused a bitter outlook in the entire education frame, especially in the urban sector, and caused devaluation in the teaching process.

For one thing, the students want extra classes as a main goal to pass examinations in various difficult subjects. But unfortunately this 'tuition culture' if I am to use that term, not only caused lot of disaster but also caused a confusion in the thinking process of the parents, for the parents were forced to think that the only way out of the normal method of gaining more marks at the examination is to obtain extra tuition for their children.

This to my mind, caused a certain degree of disrespect to the average good teacher at the school level, who thought that his or her output is insufficient to help pass the public examinations and that a special generating power is anticipated.

I know of many teachers troubled over this factor of discrepancy. While some teachers preferred to give tuition, others refrained from it thinking that it is unethical to teach more and earn more money.

Why can't the teachers teach our students properly and scientifically and help them instead of giving tuition, was the normal question raised by the educationists as well as the normal parents. But the phenomenon of giving tuition spread as a compulsory need and the teachers concerned were not to be blamed.

In reality however, the 'teacher' in many a ways became a tuition teacher instead of a schoolteacher and the latent disrespect remained. The tuition culture spread its tentacles over and above other things in education creating more scorn on the teachers. The students however, in turn regarded it as a welcome variant and a boon to their educational pattern.

Then came the competition among teachers and schools where the benchmark was good teachers and good schools. All parents want their children to be sent to good schools instead of the school nearby. As an initial measure, the parents had to deceive themselves by forging some of the documents needed in order to find a better school some distance away from their respective residences.

The parents were thus seen hunting various gratuitous ways and means by which the children could be entered into a so-called good school, where more attention is paid to their children. For most of them, it was not a matter of money but a matter of respect and achievement that was known as overcoming the competition.

In this manner rural parents had to send their children to urban schools in vans jam-packed with fellow students, a pack of fellow sufferers. This gave way to lot of corruption and malpractices on the part of the parents and the educational authorities.

The school principals were victimised and educational authorities were challenged.But all these cannot be generalised for the value of the teacher oriented culture stands for all times.

There was the absence of the communication of the message of equal education for all as laid down by the great seats of learning, where all teachers should be considered great and all seats of learning or schools in this respect should be regarded as places of equal educational opportunities.

In this bleak dismal background the role of the teacher, gradually debased from its pedestals and the result was the severe disrespect for teachers on the part of the students. But this should not be allowed to go on.

The message of the role of the teacher, it should be emphasized, had not been communicated especially over media channels. So we as a group think that it is the right time and the best thing to do is to bring back the great teacher once again to the forefront.

The role of the teacher has to be revalued in the light of the new knowledge in education. Thus the pranama or the homage is the best message, which to my point of view is the most magnetic and attractive manner of communicating the message.