Challenges and Hopes: A Reflection on Educational reform in Bihar

Challenges and Hopes: A Reflection on Educational reform in Bihar

Last year, I had the opportunity to visit Nagaland, and a year prior to that, I was in Arunachal Pradesh. It was surprising for me to find that in both DIET and SCERT, and also in schools, I came across many teachers who belong to Bihar. Of course, in most parts of North India, as well as in the West and South, it is not difficult to find a good representation of teachers from Bihar. What's the reason behind this? I think there could be two important explanations. One is that the land has a tradition of preachers, including Buddha, Mahaveer, and so on. In the modern context, teaching as a profession is a low-paid job, and given the lack of industrialization and economic opportunities, people have no choice but to migrate from there and accept low-paying jobs.

We, the teachers from Bihar (TFB), have always been concerned about the declining status of education back home. Apart from the absence of job opportunities, one of the significant factors for the mass migration in the last three decades has been the declining status of both school and higher education in Bihar. Many universities which held ranks at one time have turned into mere living monuments; they still function, but their primary role now is to conduct exams and award certificates, which they often do not do on time. Teaching and learning have been outsourced to tuition and coaching centers. In recent years, I have observed that this is not only a Bihar-specific phenomenon; it is becoming a pan-Indian affair, barring a few pockets of educational institutions in the public sector where teaching and learning still occur within the domain of schools and colleges.

From last year, some signs of change started to reach us; there were news reports from the schools of Bihar that lakhs of teachers were appointed, and school buildings were being renovated. I also had the opportunity to visit some of those schools and meet some of those newly appointed teachers. The common stories that came across, and which are now also in the media, revolve around the bureaucratic high-handedness being used to bring about educational reform in Bihar. This approach has a fundamental flaw, as it heavily depends on the theory that "Masters do not teach." It's a cleverly crafted narrative that hides policy paralysis and the inefficiency of the bureaucracy. To cut down on state expenditure, a huge number of Shikshamitras were appointed in Bihar schools back in 2004-2005 at salaries lower than the prescribed minimum wage paid to laborers in Delhi. Initially, some of these Shikshamitras were paid only Rs. 1500 per month, and of course, eligibility criteria to appoint such teachers on a contractual basis were compromised. The result was that thousands of people who were not meant to be teachers joined the profession of teaching, sending the message to parents that anyone could now become a teacher. This significantly added to the notion that "Masters do not teach."

Almost after three decades, regular appointments have been made, yet the salary structure of regular government school teachers in Bihar is far less compared to the standard salaries paid in other parts of the country. The effort to bring about reform in school education is praiseworthy, but the approach appears to be lacking in the right direction. The bureaucracy over there has waged a war against the teachers, and some decisions, like longer hours of schooling for the teachers and canceling of their leaves, are some of the evidence that the bureaucracy does not trust teachers. This is a fundamental flaw in its approach to bringing about reform. Firstly, bureaucracy is never known to bring about reform; it can only maintain a status quo. Grassroots level change at the school level will be brought about by the teachers themselves, and the large-scale change has to be owned by the political leadership. In the recent education reform in Bihar, both appear to be missing. No system of education can go beyond the quality of its teachers, and trust in teachers is a fundamental necessity to bring about any change in education.