Opinion: The Irrelevant Qualification of Teachers

One of the crucial reasons behind the perpetual failure of education in the process of the dissemination of knowledge in Pakistan is that of the polarity (difference) between the education sought by a preceptor and the subject of his instruction, which has made the attainment of his qualification redundant and his didactic performance futile.

For the sustained prosperity of a state, its preceptors must possess the disciplinarian (subject-specific) knowledge so as not to have the gist of their disquisitions compromised since it is better to be untaught than to be ill-taught.

Particularly, such an issue has been getting observed at the schools and colleges of the private sector, wherein the primary concern has always been that of making an underpaid educator spend 45 minutes of his lecture so as to have the slot of the timetable filled to satisfy the naive parents with the intent to make them pay the fees as opposed to having any meaningful content of learning delivered to the tutees.

Due to the poor possession of knowledge of the subject under discussion, the educators have been failing to have their message across in the form of lectures before their pupils.

Resultantly, it compels the parents to spend a fortune at tuition and coaching centres so as to have the course concepts fathomed and demystified by other instructors even after expending a sizeable portion of their earnings in the form of fees paid to schools and colleges.

The private sector has never been inclined towards having its human capital (teachers) educated and trained for the amplification of their delivery of education; its objective has primarily been that of the revenue generation. Whereas the public (government) domain of education has never been focused upon the furtherance of education and training of its tutors for the effectual delivery of knowledge, thereby, it has been producing those learners who have been cramming the lessons in lieu of apprehending the crux of their course content, which has, so far, foundered the state in the acquisition of the creme de la creme of intellectuals in a multitude of vocational sectors.

A teacher is considered to be a ‘master’, and the ‘mastery’ over a branch of knowledge (subject) can merely be gleaned through the pursuit of a degree in it. This is also richly suggestive of the attainment of a degree by an individual in the appurtenant field of study (subject or major) before referring to himself as a ‘teacher’.

An instantiation of the irrelevant aptitude (qualification) can also be observed at any Central Superior Services (CSS) preparatory academy, which provides instructions and guidelines to the graduated learners to have them inducted into the government service as commissioned officers; however, its very faculty of instructors does not hold degrees in their subjects of instruction. One must bear that in mind that this very competitive examination is the most superior assessment to be conducted of the prospective bureaucrats, and it, too, has been getting taught by those who have merely passed its examination. It is not rocket science to fathom the fact that passing an examination with the minimum or mediocre marks, and the capability and facility for instructing it are diametrically opposed. The spadework of the competitive examination should have been done under the aegis of those tutors, who themselves have degrees in the ad rem subjects of the assessment as opposed to learning it under the tutelage of a qualifier of the examination.

If this has been the praxis at the CSS preparation institutions, one can only imagine regarding the inapposite qualification acquired by the preceptors, who have been rendering their service at manifold schools and colleges across the country; they have been tasked with the provision of the human capital to the beloved Republic of ours in the very absence of their field-relevant competence.

The need of the hour is that of the establishment of the state-funded teachers’ training centres for the augmentation of the knowledge base and pedagogical prowess of those educators who have been lecturing at educational institutions with inappropriate credentials with the intent to make them obtain subject-specific knowledge, which they ought to have attained in the first place on their own by the pursuance of degrees in the apropos fields.