SIVANTHAN JAYAPALAN

The news that An Education Ministry effort that is set to take off will place trainees in a controlled environment to be tutored by experts on what it takes to be a teacher. It is true that many teachers are demoralised by their profession. There are many factors contributing to this. For one, the system for promotion is open for abuse and many find themselves shortchanged at the end of the day. Therefore, the responsibility and portfolio of the school administration should be made more transparent. There are headmasters who actually threaten their staff with poor performance record if they do not follow their whims and fancy. These type of behaviours should never be tolerated in a learning institution. Often, the complaints concerning unfair treatment of teachers go unheeded by the upper authorities because their grouses would be eclipsed by that of their superiors who hold the final say on matters - the is also lack of autonomy in classrooms because of many reasons, flagrantly common and poor management of the school administration that consists of senior teachers who were elected to their posts without any experience in managing, overlapping paperwork that comes from different stratas of authorities - interior admin, the nazir, the local education authority, the state education authority and finally directives from the ministry. These directives should be simplified and concerted to make administration in schools more effective and paperless. Then, there are also unmotivated and unprepared teachers for any other reasons, personal or otherwise, and methods that are not adapted to the changing time and attitudes of young people. On a personnal level, teachers, like any other person in the street, are real people and they should never be pressurised to produce miracles on a daily basis. Intake of teachers should be limited to first graders and excellent results because of a simple reason - only the best produces the best. What can one expect of someone if he/she grapples even with his/her own competencies? A look into the current scenario facing the english, maths and science teachers would reveal interesting results of the teachers' competencies in their own field. BE HAPPY AND PERFORM EXCEPTIONALLY !!!