This is quite akin to the previous item on this blog. While Bangalore University is contemplating a system of grading teachers by their pupils, in the United States, principals, teachers and staffers – including custodians – at three Washington D.C. public schools where students’ test scores rose more than 20 per cent last year received $500,000 in cash awards delivered by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty on Tuesday. Full story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/18/AR2007121800907.html
Of course, Fenty correctly says, while giving away the cash awards, that they “don’t do it for the money. They do it for the love of children.”
Here is something for us Indians to emulate the Americans. Do we have the system of appointing the best and the most committed candidates as school teachers? Do we, first of all, realize that the school teachers, particularly at the elementary level, must be the most qualified? Yes, we do observe Teachers’ Day, but it has been reduced to a mere ritual. At best, the occasion is just a token celebration of one of the best teachers Independent India produced. And it is a matter of pride for us at Mysore that the teacher served in Mysore.
