At the time when there is demand of knowledge to explore each and every corner of this complex world, India is still busy in strengthening its Right to Education (RTE Act 2009) to enhance literacy rate. On the other side, President of world's biggest economy Barrack Obama and his administration is working hard to reform and Improve Education. They have also declared 'Teachers' as 'Future'. Education has always been treated as most important tool to shape the society. Still after a lot of efforts from individual countries and as well as combined efforts of various countries, what statistics shows is pitiful. According to UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), 67 million children were out of school globally during the school year ending in 2009. Only in India, around 69 Million children are still out of school, and more than 700 million cannot read. This is one face of coin which shows the lag in quantity based education while the second face is more pathetic than first, which deals with quality of education. Quality affects students directly. Whether they are in school or out of school, matter revolves around the "quality of education". But, who is responsible for injecting quality in education?
Word education has its roots in Latin word 'educatum', means the act of teaching or training. Some intellect see its roots in Latin term 'educare' which means "to bring up", or "to raise". Though both the words differ in meaning from each other but the roots are same, as both leads to betterment. Renowned leader Nelson Mandela once expressed his faith on education through words-
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
Aristotle expressed his support on the importance of education and said,
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
Both the personalities were very true but to understand and achieve their vision, it is mandatory to focus on quality education. Education teaches an individual to expresses himself, it teaches means of adjustment with the society, it teaches relationship with ideas, customs and traditions. Education is the process by which the knowledge, character and behavior of an individual are formed and modified in the right direction. Education is preparing the people intellectually for mature life by developing their logic, reasoning and quality of judgment. But can simply educating the masses will give us better result?
No, we should never deny the quality from an education system. Only quality education can transform a civilized society into a good civilization, strengthening it from its very basic root. One more step further in depth and you will find a universal link between quality and education.
"Teachers", who educate a child, or in other words nourishes a sapling and make it grow to give sweeter fruits. Irrespective of any condition, if we could find quality teachers then we may achieve our goal. Educating a whole new generation is the most interesting and fantastic thing to do, but an honest question should be asked that, "do those teacher themselves understand the life clearly?" As the lessons they teach, affects the whole generation, therefore, if our teachers acknowledge that they do not know enough to teach, which they will not, then it is the time to rejuvenate this holy profession and start from beginning.
The importance of teacher in education does not require any explanation. From the ancient time teachers were respected and given a very high stature. Teachers were called as 'Guru' or 'Aacharya', and were placed above God by the famous Saint philosopher 'Kabir'. Even today when country celebrates Teacher’s Day every speech comprises of his words. But sadly enough no one questions that, 'do our teachers really deserve to get such a high stature?'
Today's situation tells an entire different story. From teacher we never meant only teachers from schools and colleges, rather it includes parents too, as they are called as first teacher. Teachers are the living books to tell past and to show future, to the coming generation. It is their duty to protect the new consciousness that is arising on the horizon, from any type of contamination and pollution. Life sometimes can be too tricky and cannot be learnt in school or through books. It comes through experiences, and as an individual or teachers who have these experiences should impart this to upcoming generation in the best and uncontaminated way possible so that they may start learning in a pure environment. Abraham Lincoln in his famous 'Letter to his Son's Teacher' has given suggestions to his son’s teacher, what to teach and how to teach. He focused on a rationalist, balanced and philosophical teaching but he knew that this is not an easy task, so he frequently asked him that, 'teach him if you can'.
Teaching by profession is challenging; it is challenging because it is important and it is important because our life, society, humanity and future everything depends on our education and teachers. How beautifully and truly someone has said that "I touch the future...I teach."
To achieve this level of education, what type of teachers we need?
We need teachers who not only themselves are innovators, rather he must also have quality to create innovators. Teachers have to be designers. If Socrates is right that nothing can be taught to a person, we only can act like a midwife in producing the knowledge then a teacher has to be like midwife; and finally we need teachers who understand what being teacher means.
"Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants." -John W. Gardner
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