Do a Google search for 'Missing girl child in India' and the Internet throws up 1,810,000 results. Now repeat the search, this time for 'Missing teachers in India' and the Net throws up an astounding 54,800,000 results. Hardly the kind of statistic you'd want to wake up to on Teacher's Day! Yet, that is the harsh reality today.
Minister for human resource development (HRD) Kapil Sibal estimates the shortage at 1.2 million; enough to prod the HRD ministry into addressing the problem on a war-footing.
But more than a year after we passed the Right to Education Act, making free and compulsory education a fundamental right for all children between the ages of 6 and 14, studies show no improvement or only a marginal improvement in the all-important pupil-teacher ratio (PTR).
How do we deliver on the promise enshrined in the Act if we don't have enough teachers? The Act sets the PTR at a maximum of 30:1 while the actual ratio in primary schools [39, according to the just released PROBE Re-visted report and 33, according to National University of Education Planning and Administration, (NUEPA)] is well above that.
It is certainly well above that of our bête noir, China, at 18. 'Across the world, the best minds opt for the teaching profession; but this is not happening in India, so we need to give more incentives,' said the HRD minister some months ago.
But is it only a matter of incentives? How does one ensure accountability? Teaching is a vocation, not a 9-to-5 job; a good teacher has to be passionate about the job and cannot look at it only as a means to earn a livelihood. It is for this reason that any attempt to tackle the shortage of teachers must address both the quantity and quality deficit.
Each calls for a different approach. Merely increasing the number of teachers is of no use if, as repeated studies have shown, children are 'educated' only in name. At the same time, given the scale of the shortage, it is necessary to think of practical rather than ideal solutions, and most importantly, tailor them to suit local needs.
The latter is important because the shortage of teachers is highly skewed. While urban areas are relatively better off —in fact, there is a surplus in some areas — the picture is quite different in rural India. Here again, the picture is not uniform.
You have states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu where schools in rural areas are far better served than in Bihar, UP, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where the need is the greatest, given low literacy levels in these states. This is where a more imaginative approach could help.
For instance, it is absurd to insist on the same minimum qualification for a primary school teacher as for a secondary school teacher. So, one way of addressing the shortage could be to specify sufficiently differentiated standards, keeping in mind both the need and the availability of suitable manpower.
Another could be to employ parateachers, or teachers (often untrained) hired on short contracts to work in primary schools. This has been tried by a number of states and with considerable success. In their May 2010 paper, Esther Duflo, et al point to how para-teachers are not only more accountable but also respond better to incentives.
Unlike, government teachers, they are not part of an entrenched-forlife constituency. They have a job as long as their performance is up to the mark, and since there is usually a long queue of job aspirants waiting to step into their shoes, they are kept on their toes.
Not surprisingly, states that went in for parateachers in a big way show a dramatic improvement in their PTRs. Unfortunately, despite this evidence on the ground, the Right to Education Act has virtually sounded the death knell to this tried-and-tested (and eminently practical) answer to the numbers deficit.
It specifies a centrally notified acceptable level of qualification that all teachers will have to acquire within a maximum period of five years, failing which they will no longer be qualified to teach. This is clearly a case of the good being the enemy of the best. Insistence on centrally specified qualifications when we have almost six lakh under-qualified teachers in the school system is downright short-sighted.
Remember what Deng Xiaoping famously said about not caring about the colour of the cat as long as it catches the mice. So too with para-teachers! If they are able to deliver (admittedly, the para-teacher model is not without flaws such as political influence in their appointment, elite-capture, etc) then nothing else should matter, neither degree nor pedigree! Distance education could also be an answer.
So far, it has been used to impart training to teachers. But it could be used equally effectively to impart education to school children. As broadband connectivity improves, it may not be necessary for teachers to be physically present in schools.
Another issue that is no less important is to free teachers of non-teaching responsibilities such as census surveys, election duties, household surveys and supervision of midday meals. The PROBE Re-visited report quotes a primary school teacher in Bihar saying, "First three teachers have to teach five grades and on top of that the authorities keep calling us to the office." This must change.
The heartening increase in school enrolment consequent on the National Education Policy, 1986 and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is pointless unless it is matched by efforts to improve the PTR and the quality of our teachers. 'Good teachers are costly, but bad teachers cost more,' said Bob Talbert, the iconic Michigan journalist.
On Teacher's Day, we need to chew on that.