India is a land where we respect our Guru to an extent where a student can even lay down his/her life for their Guru. Do we? Because last time I checked it was in Mahabharata Era, that such an incident happen where Guru Dronacharaya asked Eklavya to offer his thumb as Guru Dakshina (Teacher's Fee), and Eklavya offered it knowing that he won't be able to shoot arrows without a thumb.
Please do not judge me right away, this article is not about Dronacharya or Eklavya and I will not state more example of teacher turning selfish like the one above to support my argument.
Teacher's day is celebrated to cherish the life of Dr. Radhakrishnan. He loved teaching and hence was loved dearly by his students. We no longer have teachers like Dr. Radhakrishnan, except for a very few. But a very few would not serve the youngest country in the world, with about 65% population under the age of 28. We need more good teachers. And simply celebrating Teacher's Day won't help.
I am no way against dedicating a day to cherish a Teacher's life and journey. But going to school, taking 2-3 classes, and coming back home to take tuitions is not the old school Teacher, it has become just another profession, with education turning into just another profitable industry.
Open a college, admit students(which is the easiest part, for the obvious reason - Population), hire employees(Teachers), and the machinery is ready to churn out money. This is exactly what the education system in our country looks like, if you think differently, please enlighten me too.
Being a Teacher is not a profession, anyone can be a teacher. A teacher is someone, who teaches us any lesson. Be it a lesson about life, discipline, career, relationship, playing a sport, or anything else.
I have had the opportunity to be a student of some of the most amazing teachers and some of the worst. A teacher must motivate and empower the students to realize their true goals in life. But do they? When I was in college, I was never good in programming and passed the subject of Web Development in the 3rd attempt. I never got a chance to understand how much I can fall in love with Web Development until I left college and then started to explore it on my own.
I am not complaining, why would I? Because I had less experienced or interested teachers in my college? No, never. Life is a teacher, and she taught me a hell lot of things. And I celebrate life every day for being an amazing teacher.
I just feel it is a little hypocritical to ignore the other side of the coin. We need a good education system to build our nation. And for that, we need some amazing teachers. Not motivated by good government salaries, less work, but to improve the future of every student they teach. Teach every child about morals, social responsibilities, to live their lives to the fullest, to be the best they can be.
And it's not about what is correct morally, according to a report by Karthik Muralidharan of the University of California, San Diego for the fiscal year 2015, Indian government paid a whopping $1.5 billion in salaries to the teachers who were absent from the schools throughout the year. Let me do the calculation for you, in the year 2015, 1 USD was equivalent to about Rs. 64 (average), which makes $1.5 billion to be Rs. 9600 crores. And we think India is a poor country! Our government paid Rs. 9600 crores as salary to people sitting at their home, while they have been assigned the most important duty of building the future by educating our children.
Our future as a nation, would not be decided by the wars we win, it will be made by the children of today. And if we don't teach them well, and celebrate Teacher's Day every year, then maybe after 5, 10 or maybe 20 years later, this article of mine will go viral.
