Inaugural Address at the ThinkEdu Conclave: Schooling India for Tomorrow

Chennai, Feb 7 2013

Evolution of Great Teachers

Great teachers emanate out of

Knowledge, Passion and compassion

I am indeed delighted to participate in the inauguration of ThinkEdu Conclave in the ambience teachers,
principals and educationists from the many parts of the country assembled here at Chennai. I would like
to greet the New Indian Express Group for organizing this ThinkEdu Conclave and I take this opportunity
to greet all the associating partners, speakers, participants, invitees and distinguished guests. My
greetings to all of you.

Friends, education is a lifelong learning, particularly containing three components; they are (a) learning
to learn (b) learning to live (c) learning to survive. Indeed students are the targets for learning. From
entry to the school, the students, almost twelve years are in the learning process with 25,000 hours in
the class (1st to 12th). We have to ask ourselves whether we have these three components of
education.

I will be very happy if ThinkEdu Summit comes to one single reform and recommendation that is
"Primary education is the source of education and reforming primary education is vital for empowering
education." Primary education is the foundation for education; it has a purpose to bring out the
creativity of children (5 to 15 years) while they grow. This is the time, primary school has to have a
creative syllabus, a creative teacher and a creative classroom. So the changes are needed in all the three
aspects. How to do that? Probably this may be one of the targeted subjects of discussion in ThinkEdu
Conclave. In my talk and discussion, I will be discussing the aspects on how to empower students and
teachers to transform the education system. Hence, I would like to share my thoughts on the topic
"Evolution of Great Teachers".

Evolution of great teacher

Dear friends, Our children have to have primary school teachers with capacities of knowledge, passion
and compassion. Knowledge itself has three components; teachers will have to be creative, righteous in
thinking and courage in taking decision in the environment of student community. Of course passion for
teaching, particularly for children with compassion, generally lifts the knowledge co-efficient of the
overall class.

With these backgrounds of defining the teacher?s profile, the nation will be fortunate to have such
teachers. My study result is based on two of my teachers; one is a primary school teacher and the other
is a secondary school, both during 1936-1946.
Sivasubramania Iyer, was my 5th class science teacher, Ramakrishnan Sir, was my 9th class Mathematics
teacher. Both the teachers, when they enter our classroom, they radiate knowledge, and they radiate
purity of life. Once Sivasubramania Iyer was teaching how birds fly, by drawing diagrams in the black
board in a classroom of 55 boys. Later, took all of us to the Rameswaram Sea shore, showed us how the
birds fly with flapping their wings and other dynamics actions of the birds. That day, I learnt not only
how birds fly but also my teacher injected me what should be my aim in life, at the age of 11. That aim
was indeed rooted deep in my heart that I should pursue something to do with flying. My teacher is an
example for love for teaching and the teacher was also a shining star among teaching community. For
students, Sivasubramania Iyer is a role model for knowledge and also way of life.

What did I learn from my mathematics teacher Ramakrishnan Sir, at Swartz High school,
Ramanathapuram? We were 400 boys and girls. My mathematics teacher Ramakrishna Iyer used to say,
O my students, my teaching mission is to ensure that you children love mathematics and thereby you
score good marks apart from learning mathematics with pleasure. When I was studying in the 9th class,
many of us used to get less than 40 marks in mathematics. Our mathematics teacher told us that, when
you are score more than 80 marks in other subjects, why are you getting low marks in mathematics. He
evolved a method of teaching that created confidence for the whole class. How did the teacher inject
the confidence in us? While conducting the class he gave us an exercise of 10 problems. He asked us to
make teams and solve the problems. Through that method, more than 90% of the class including me got
100 out of 100. We were bubbling with happiness. Then onwards our maths performance improved for
better. After a few years, we realized, that our teacher injected the confidence in us that ?I can do it? by
his teaching and also formulation of the problem to make us succeed and promote self-confidence.
Ramakrishnan Sir taught us with compassion and lifted the classroom to higher level.

Society and teacher

I have seen with my own eyes and life, both my teachers were venerated in my home and in our village.
My father, who is three times elder to my teacher?s age will get up and receive the teachers. When they
walk in the streets, everyone pays their respect to my teachers. Of course my two great teachers were
shining stars in the midst of 30 other teachers.

Before leaving Delhi for this ThinkEdu Conclave, I asked my respected friend and a great educationist,
particularly childrens? education Prof. Yashpal, "what is your view in selection of teachers?" Prof.
Yashpal said "Kalam, you and me have seen in the children meet, how children ask unique questions?
And how we got changed in knowledge acquisition as our way of life". One of the selection process for
primary school teachers would be, the potential teacher need to take class in a primary school and
assess how she or he conducts the creative class, how she or he answers the question from children and
how she or he teaches with compassion.

Challenge to Education is generating Creative teachers

As envisioned, we need to have a creative classroom, creative syllabus and creative teacher. We can
create creative classroom and also creative syllabus, but the challenge is how to select creative teacher?
How to identify creative teacher? How to create creative teacher? That is the challenge?
I have studied how the other nations are handling the processing preparing the teacher or Initial
Teacher Preparation (ITP). Let me focus on each country and see how they have been selected,
identified and created?

As per OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)'s International Approaches to
teacher selection and recruitment study emphasizes that the most effective mechanisms for selecting
candidates for ITP "acknowledge that for a person to become an effective teacher they need to possess
a certain set of characteristics that can be identified before they enter teaching: a high overall level of
literacy and numeracy, strong interpersonal and communication skills, a willingness to learn, and the
motivation to teach" .

Entry into School Teacher Training across the world

In many nations entry to teacher training at undergraduate level is determined by a range of factors
including: student performance at school in terms of attainment and attitude; performance on the
Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT); an interview by the higher education institution; and a series of tests
of "teaching attitudes and ethics". Particularly, when I studied the selection process of Primary school
teachers in Singapore and Finland, both nations reveal the principles of selection had certain basis.

Singapore Experience: Good teaching comes from identity and integrity of the teacher. Learning to
think, thinking critically and creativity should become the hall mark of teacher preparation programmes.

Finnish Experience: Teacher education is academic and takes place in universities. The intention is to link
theory and practice in a sufficiently close relationship that a teacher may be able to resolve everyday
teaching problems on the basis of his or her theoretical knowledge. All the teachers are qualified for
post graduate studies. Pedagogical studies and content knowledge studies must be brought close
together. The role of the teacher in the broader societal context is emphasized. After graduation from
university, only students are licensed as teachers and may apply for teaching positions in schools.

India?s Teacher Training Programme: In India, to become a primary or a upper primary school teacher,
the basic educational qualification is 12th Class with a two-year teacher training. Out of 6 lakhs students
who pass 12th grade exam, only less than 0.008% join elementary teacher training with high merit. They
become teachers by choice and not by chance. Students with UG/PG qualification in any one of the
subject taught in Secondary/Higher secondary school level respective are eligible for the admission in a
B.Ed (Bachelor of Education). As per the latest norms, teachers had to pass TET (Teachers Eligibility Test)
to qualify and continue to teach.

My suggestions to selection of great teachers

Great teachers for primary school are very important building block for three component of education
system, primary, secondary and higher education. In the world, great research work has been done, how
to evolve a primary school teacher? I am impressed by the selection and nurturing process of school
teachers by Singapore and Finland, as discussed earlier. Of course, every nation has to evolve its own
methodology. I have attempted possible evolution of primary school teachers based on experience of
multiple countries and India?s experiences in the past and present methodologies.

So friends, with all the experiences what I have narrated, I suggest the following criteria, which can be
formulated in selection of great teachers.

1. Teacher has to be trained in a university environment and the potential teacher has to be taught by
great teachers.

2. It is essential to establish the teacher loves teaching as a profession.

3. Society has to respect the teachers, and honour great teachers

4. The teacher has to have capacity for lifelong learning.

Now let us see once we have the great teachers are in position, what kind of capacities needs to be built
among the students.

Capacity Building Model

When students come out of the educational institutions certain capacities are required to be built in
them to deal with the real world, particularly to grow in their professional career and participate in the
national development. I suggest that the ingredients for capacity building must be embedded right from
the beginning of the students? life from primary education to higher education. A good educational
model is the need of the hour to ensure that the students are developed as enlightened citizens and also
participate in national development missions.

For participating in the nation building tasks: the capacities required to be built among the students in
their formative years by the educational institutions are: the capacity for research or inquiry; the
capacity for creativity and innovation; the capacity to use high technology; the capacity for
entrepreneurial leadership; and the capacity for moral leadership.

a. Research and enquiry: The 21st century is about the management of all the knowledge and
information we have generated and the value addition we could bring to it. We must give our students
the skills with which they find a way through the sea of knowledge that we have created and continue
with life long learning. Today we are empowered by technology to teach ourselves beyond classrooms
and become life-long learners. This is indeed required for sustained economic development of the
nation and also individual prosperity.

b. Creativity and Innovation: The management of knowledge in the 21st century is beyond the capacity
of a single individual. The amount of information that we have around is overwhelming. The
management of knowledge therefore must move out of the realm of the individual and shift into the
realm of the networked groups. The students must learn how to manage knowledge collectively and to
work in multi-disciplinary teams. When the information is networked, the power and utility of the
information grows multifold as predicted by Metcalfe's Law. Information that is static does not grow. In
the new digital economy, information circulated across enterprise, creates innovation, and eventually
contributes to national wealth.

c. Capacity to use high technology: Every student in our schools and colleges should be brought in
contact with technology to aid their learning process. Educational institutions should be equipped with
adequate computing equipment, laboratory equipments, and Internet facilities with high band width
connectivity and provide an environment for the students to enhance their learning ability. In the midst
of all of the technological innovations and revolutions we cannot think that the role of the teachers will
be diminished. In fact the teacher will become even more important and the whole world of education
will become teacher assisted and would help in "tele-porting" the best teacher to every nook and corner
of the country and propagate the knowledge. The teacher becomes a facilitator and knowledge
manager. For full utilization of the available connectivities through satellite, high bandwidth optical fiber
communication in conjunction with technologies like Wi-max, the most critical aspect is the availability
of quality content. I would suggest all the experts here to address this important issue and evolve a time
bound action plan so that the quality content is made available at nodal points for access by the
students, teachers and desiring learners.

d. Entrepreneurship: The aptitude for entrepreneurship should be cultivated right from the beginning
and in the educational environment both in the Schools and the Colleges. We must teach our students
to take calculated risks for the sake of larger gain, but within the ethos of good business. They should
also cultivate a disposition to do things right. The inner being must be illuminated with righteousness.
This capacity will enable them to take up challenging tasks later.

e. Moral leadership: Moral leadership involves two aspects. First it requires the ability to have
compelling and powerful dreams or visions of human betterment. Moral leadership requires a
disposition to do the right thing and influence others also to do right things. There is a need for inclusion
of "moral science" class as a part of education in all the schools and colleges. This is essential for
promotion of value-based education leading to enlightened citizenship.

f. What can I do for you? : Every one of us has gone through various phases of education from childhood
to profession. I visualize a scene. A child, a teenager an adult and a leader are appearing before me. How
does each one react to a particular situation? The situation is human need. The child asks, "What can
you do for me"? The teenager says, "I want to do it alone". The young person proclaims, "let us do it
together". The leader offers, "What can I do for you". So, the teachers have got a tremendous
responsibility to transform a child into a leader - the transformation of ?what can you do for me? to
?what can I do for you'. That will demand a teacher to be a visionary with an inspiring capability and the
teacher has to ensure that teachers impart learning to the children in such a way as to bring out the best
in them and for this, he has to be a good teacher himself. I am sure, the best of creativity among the
students will emerge by integrated influence of principals, teachers, and parents on students.

For building capacity, it is essential to increase the teacher - student ratio, improve the quality of
teachers, provide continuous methods for up gradation and provide them with technology aids for
becoming lifelong autonomous learners. The experts assembled here may try to review the type of
capacity building needed in teaching based on their experiences.