Teachers and Para teachers A STUDY ON POLICIES AND PRACTICES

1. Teachers and Para teachersA STUDY ON POLICIES AND PRACTICES Sudhanshu Shekhar Patra Ph.D Candidate , NUEPA

2. Changes in Educational Provisions in India since 1950 Source: SES,MHRD several years

3. Growth of Education Institution at Elementary Level

4. Growth of Student Enrollment

5. Growth of Teachers

6. Demand for teachers • Rapid expansion of educational and provision of facilities, demand for quality elementary education for all children. • It is widely recognised that the availability of well qualified and trained teachers in adequate numbers is the key to education development (OECD, 2005, Kothari, 1970). • Teacher is the most significant resource in the schools and are central to school improvement efforts. • Teachers are the largest group of workers in the public service and consume the largest percentage in the education budget.

7. Contd… • Studies reveal that teacher salaries in India, account for nearly 95% of the state level allocation to education (Varghese and Tilak, 1991). • Providing universal access to education and seeking to manage teacher costs became a tough balancing act across the states in India. • New strategies for lowering the cost of teaching force have recently been adopted, as a result contract teachers/ para- teachers have come to an existence. • Considering the limitations of budget in elementary education, it was the biggest challenge how to optimize the provision of teachers, particularly in distributing and utilizing the existing staff in a more efficient way.

8. Contd… • In India, there exist varieties of schools under different management. • The service conditions of the teachers who are working in the education system are not same across the states. • Decentralisation and the constitutional amendment regarding empowering the PRI system were empowered for the recruitment of teachers as per the local need of the respective schools. • As a result a new set of parallel teacher cadre was created at the local level, with acceptance of Govt.

9. Contd.. • At present multiple cadre of teachers were established, one by the state government and other by the district administration and local community • The enormous expansion of cadre of new teachers put a question regarding the de-professionalizing the teacher cadre in India. • With respect to the financial limitation, states are recruiting teachers on contractual tenure, fixed salary and low qualified untrained teachers.

12. General discussion with respect to my Study in the state of Orissa • Who will replace para teachers? • Is excluding them the only option? • How can teachers be made accountable? • What can be done to meet the demand for teachers?

13. Shiksha Sahayak (SS) Recently large scale Para teachers Shiksha Sahayak (SS) were recruited in contract, the main assurance given was on regularization of their services. After serving as SS continuously for 3 years on contract basis with a positive certificate from the concerned VECs, one shall be engaged as a Junior teacher by the respective Zilla Parishad on contract basis with consolidated remuneration of Rs 3500/- per month. After satisfactory completion of 3 years of continuous and satisfactory engagement, a Junior teacher shall be eligible for appointment as a regular teacher by the Zilla Parishad. In brief a SS after 6 years of continuous and satisfactory contractual engagement is assured of a regular teacher’s job.

14. Gana Shikshak (People’s Teacher) After closing of EGS centers, Education volunteers(EVs) engaged by the respective community in the centers were disengaged. In order to rehabilitee the EGS- EVs a as Gana Shikshak (meaning peoples teacher) under SSA with a monthly consolidated remuneration of Rs 2000/- , those who have minimum qualification as that of a SS or Rs 1,750/- (for those who are untrained). The conditions of their engagement are similar to SS.

15. Service condition and career mobility • In the present conditions a teacher in the elementary cadre of Orissa has bleak chance of any upward career mobility in spite of his high qualifications. • Even if s/he is a trained graduate, s/he can not aspire to become a head master or a sub inspector of schools. • Lack of any career mobility and loosing early years as a contract employee, a teacher hardly derives any motivation to perform in the government schools.

16. Teacher appraisal and accountability There is absolutely no information on any system existing for appraisal of teachers’ performance and developing accountability for their actions so far. It is expected that in near future the state has to develop the instruments for appraisal of teachers’ performance and fix responsibility according to the provisions of the right to education act.

17. Orissa: All is not well • Despite the plentiful supply of young people working as teachers , but most of them are de-motivated for same work and different salary structure. (It varies from 1,750/- to 17,050/-). • Despite the emphasis on teacher training, most teachers viewed the course are mere formalities to be completed, rather than resourceful to do their job better. • The block and cluster resource centers fails to provide academic support to teachers, in practice these personnel fulfill the routine administrative work. • Even though the regular teachers are happy with the 6th pay package, they are vocal about the lack of promotion and other incentive schemes. There is no benefit of rewards who put more effort towards teaching.

18. Contd… • Though we have been talking of construction of new knowledge in NCF, the scope is futile as the content and instructional methods were instructed and guided by rigid rules. • There are significant number of untrained teacher(18%) exist due to the adhocism in Teacher recruitment policy. • The decentralised decision making process, works in a centralised way. • Politicisation of the transfer and other teacher affairs is rampant. • Too much record related work, two sample schools have 41 records to be managed.

19. Thanks