Opinion In India, why teachers are walking away from the classroom
They realise that authorities and donors are more interested in evidence of efficiency than in children’s well-being and learning
A senior teacher who resigned found the additional work she was expected to do much too distracting and burdensome. She told me that in her school, a Kendriya Vidyalaya, teachers are turning into event managers. (C R Sasikumar) 
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It is not easy to come by a permanent teaching job these days. Yet, many young teachers choose to quit and accept a return to the state of unemployment and uncertainty. The deep disquiet spreading in schools is just not known outside. UNESCO had noticed the beginning of this trend in many countries two decades ago. A lead article published in its official journal, Prospects, was titled, “Where have all the teachers gone?” It discussed the results of a global survey revealing the exhaustion and disenchantment of experienced teachers across different continents. They were resigning. The survey identified a number of factors for this silent crisis in the profession. Some of the factors had to do with conditions in schools and classrooms, while other factors related to the changes in the home environment that affected children’s behaviour at school.
No studies have so far been done in India to make sense of this phenomenon. However, teachers do talk about things that are making their professional lives difficult. The sense of helplessness they feel in the face of bureaucratic aggression is a common complaint. One might mistakenly assume that bureaucratic aggression and expectations prevail only in government schools. Corporatised management of private schools manifests in ways quite similar to the control that is bureaucratically exercised on government school teachers. Denial of professional autonomy is a common story, especially in the context of current fads.
One of the best history teachers I know resigned from a prestigious public school because the principal insisted that she must use digital resources. She didn’t want to, because she thinks that history calls for analytical reflection on historical data and debates. This goal, she feels, can’t be achieved by using digital exposure to historical events. The school she was employed in didn’t mind losing her. Like many others, her principal felt that the future lies in maximising the use of technology. AI is already knocking at school doors, and many principals are eager to welcome it.
Another senior teacher who resigned found the additional work she was expected to do much too distracting and burdensome. She told me that in her school, a Kendriya Vidyalaya, teachers are turning into event managers. Orders to celebrate this or that occasion come from above, and these orders include the responsibility to upload pictures proving compliance. Principals appreciate the teachers who help the school put up a good show on event-days. Record-keeping was always an important part of a teaching job, but now it has become more important than teaching itself. Frequent testing has made the job of record-keeping more tedious. All record-keeping is now to be done digitally, which implies its own imposition on the limited time available to teachers to prepare and teach.
One assumes that those who resign can afford to do so. But I recently learnt that a former student from a weaker economic background resigned from his permanent job in a government secondary school because he couldn’t take it anymore. The stress of extra duties, many of which he found absurd, was more than he could handle along with his teaching responsibilities. These duties are the familiar clerical ones, but some are new, such as preparing students for MCQ (multiple-choice question) tests, that determine a school’s image. Dealing with classroom violence was another source of stress for this teacher. Violence in classrooms and corridors has been on the rise for some time. Every now and then, we notice newspaper reports of children bringing a knife or firearm in their school bags. The situation is not yet as bad as it is in the US, but the direction is obvious.
Increased aggression, bullying and violence in the classroom makes many teachers feel helpless. Those who have tried to study this phenomenon attribute it to children’s participation in social media and their exposure to the depiction of violence in online sources. Early introduction to the smartphone has exacerbated this problem as Jonathan Haidt has argued in his book, The Anxious Generation. He relates the new technological environment with increased levels of stress in children and its contribution to aggressive behaviour.
Thousands of primary schools in rural India function with just two or three teachers. In addition to teaching with extremely limited resources, they are expected to assist the head teacher to collect and transmit data to the block and district officials. Centralised data access has now become an obsession. It covers a wide swathe: Admission, attendance, scholarship distribution, training, mid-day meals, meetings, evaluation, infrastructure, and expenditure. Who must manage and supply all this data? Teachers, of course. Teaching and children don’t matter. The system is focused on transparency on outcomes, which means timely loading of data that higher-placed officials can access. This focus was supposed to improve quality, but it has now become a goal by itself. Teachers and school heads realise that authorities and donors are more interested in evidence of efficiency than in children’s well-being and learning. Official truth has always differed from the teachers’ truth. The latter is closely guarded in order to avert repercussions.
The writer is a former director of NCERT and the author of Thank You, Gandhi
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