India’s school system still lacks enough teachers and struggles from poor student-teacher ratio stated UNESCO in its 2021 State of the Education Report for India: No Teachers, No Class’.
On the occasion of World Teacher’s Day, 5th October, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) released the report.
About the Report
This report is the annual flagship publication of UNESCO New Delhi. Report is prepared on the basis of extensive research. This is the third edition of the State of Education Report.
This year, the report focuses on the theme of “teachers, teaching and teacher education”, highlighting that the work of teaching is complex.
Findings in the report were prepared on the basis of analysis of Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) and Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) data.
Aim
The report attempts to provide understanding on the key aspects of the teaching profession and also provides a profile of 9.6 million teaching workforce.
Report also highlights the challenges of an intricate teaching routine as well as their professional development.
Findings of the Report
Lack of digital infrastructure and internet connectivity
The overall availability of computing devices (desktops or laptops) in school is 22 per cent for all India, with rural areas seeing much lower provisioning (18 per cent) than urban areas (43 per cent). Access to the internet in schools is 19 per cent all over India – only 14 per cent in rural areas compared to 42 per cent in urban areas.
Single-teacher Institiutions
The report revealed that 10% to 15% of schools in several states were single-teacher institutions. It also showed that contractualization in teaching jobs is making the situation complex and creating remuneration disparity.
There are around 1.2 lakh single-teacher schools in India. It accounts for 7.15 percent of 11.51 lakh schools. Out of this, 89 per cent are in rural areas.
States with a high percentage of single-teacher schools include Arunachal Pradesh (18.22 per cent), Goa (16.08 per cent), Telangana (15.71 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (14.4 per cent), Jharkhand (13.81 per cent), Uttarakhand (13.64 per cent), Madhya Pradesh ( 13.08 per cent), Rajasthan (10.08 per cent).
Vacancies
About 19 per cent i.e .about 11.16 lakh teachers’ positions in schools are vacant, and 69 per cent of them are rural areas.
Three states with over one lakh vacancies are Uttar Pradesh (3.3 lakh), Bihar (2.2 lakh) and West Bengal (1.1 lakh). The Unesco report accords them the status of the three worst states in this parameter. MP has the highest number of single-teacher schools (21,077).
Pupil-teacher ratio improved in government schools
The total number of teachers in the system grew by 17 per cent from 8.9 million teachers in 2013-14 to 9.4 million in 2018-19. The overall pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) – reflecting the effort of the state to meet the RTE Act teacher-requirement guidelines – changed from 31:1 in 2013-14 to 26:1 in 2018-19.
In the same period, the proportion of teachers employed in the private sector grew from 21 per cent in 2013-14 to 35 per cent in 2018-19. The proportion of private schools with teacher requirements (as per a PTR of 1:35) has gone down by 10 per cent, while that of government schools decreased by 6 per cent.
Women make half of the teacher workforce
Half of India’s 9.43 million school teachers are women. State to state variation in the proportion of women teachers in the workforce is considerable.
States and union territories (UTs) where over 70 per cent of teachers are women include several that are ranked high in the Performance Grading Index (PGI). These include Chandigarh (82 per cent), Delhi (74 per cent), Kerala (78 per cent), Punjab (75 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (75 per cent).
Job without Contracts – A Major Issue in the Indian Education Sector
The survey said over two-thirds of teachers at private institutions did not even have a contract, leaving them vulnerable.
Most of the contract-less are guest teachers, part-time teachers and those whose hiring had been outsourced. They tend to lose out more on benefits like annual increments, pension, provident fund, health insurance, leave entitlements and legal protection against arbitrary employer action.
In the government sector, special education teachers (who teach subjects like sports or music) and vocational education teachers (carpentry, metal work) have a heavy presence among those without contracts.
Covid-19 Impact
The pandemic and the subsequent school closures, still continuing in most states, has exposed teachers to job loss, pay cuts and salary delays while also increasing their workload, the report says.
Government school teachers have been assigned tasks like conducting Covid surveys, facilitating vaccination, and distributing midday meal rations and learning materials at students’ doorsteps. They have had to join election duty, with over 1,500 primary teachers in Uttar Pradesh believed to have died of the virus after catching the infection during panchayat poll duty this year.
Despite these assignments putting them at high risk, teachers are yet to be counted as frontline workers.
National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 addresses the problems
According to the UNESCO report, NEP 2020 presents an opportunity to address teacher and teacher education issues in the country.
It proposes several changes in the current system aimed at ensuring the provision of quality teachers and quality teaching in order to secure quality education for all. The policy acknowledges teachers as the heart of the learning process, and stresses the importance of their recruitment, continuing professional development, work environment and service conditions
Initiatives taken
The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) from India won the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize 2021 for its programme ‘Enabling education of persons with disabilities through technology-enabled inclusive learning material, with specific focus on Indian Sign Language based content’.
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, NIOS provided learners with online educational support throughout the year, using various online platforms in addition to delivering a one-hour live TV programme in Indian Sign Language twice a week. Learners who lacked access to consistent Internet connectivity due to remote locations were able to download learning materials either through minimal broadband, or satellite transmission.
A number of foundations and NGOs, higher education institutions, publishers and EdTech companies have responded to the crisis by offering free online courses and webinars on e-teaching, and free resources.
Recommendations
- Improve the terms of employment of teachers in both public and private schools
- Increase the number of teachers and improve working conditions in North Eastern states, rural areas and ‘aspirational districts’.
- Special attention needs to be paid to rural areas, districts with high scheduled caste and tribe populations, and all across India’s north-east, where the ratio of teachers to students needs to improve and be rationalized. Recognize teachers as frontline workers
- Increase the number of physical education, music, art, vocational education, early childhood and special education teachers.
- Value the professional autonomy of teachers. Teacher autonomy is essential for ensuring a learning environment that addresses the diverse needs of children
- Build teachers’ career pathways
- Restructure pre-service professional development and strengthen curricular and pedagogical reform
- Provide teachers with meaningful ICT training
- Develop teaching governance through consultative processes, based on mutual accountability
- It also advocated recognising teachers as front line workers amid the Covid-19 pandemic and highlighted prevailing job security concerns among private schools and contractual teachers.
With this we come to the end of this blog. We covered all the major points stated in the report.
