Teacher; Role and Challenges Education illuminates a candle of modesty in our inner world that wipes out obscurity

of our heart and head and leads us to the ultimate goal of life. Education in modern age seeks to preserve, transmit of advance knowledge and is committed to bring change for the betterment of society. Education is teaching and learning skills, values and knowledge. In ammu and !ashmir, there is a considerable progress in education sector by opening schools in every nook and corner which long ago was a dream too hard to accomplish. "#hen schools flourish, all flourishes$ %&artin 'uther(.The great philosopher )ocrates says, "* nation is known by its school, a school is known by its teachers$. )ince teachers role is pivotal in this whole process of education, his position and role becomes very important. The teachers+ role is not merely to teach the students how to read a book, how to collect and store information and how to stuff his mind with facts. Today computers and technology can do it much more accurately. The teachers+ prime duty is to teach the student how to use the knowledge for the further advances in knowledge and improvement and ennoblement of individual and individual life. In other words he has to impart values to the students under his care. ,or this purpose the teacher will have to lead by e-ample and not by percept alone. .ur teachers in government sector are e/ually meritorious and well e/uipped with professional degrees like 0.Ed.,1.Ed.,&.Ed., etc. &oreover, the education department also invests a lot of time and money upon their knowledge upgradation and training purposes but still the performance of the teachers working in government sector is very deplorable as is evident from their results every year. Each time we talk of poor performance of the government schools, it is a teacher who is taken as the prime culprit and in fact the onus lies with the teacher and conse/uently shares greater amount of responsibility. It has been seen that most of the time public and official wrath strikes a teacher at the end of the academic session usually after the declaration of board results while he always struggles very hard to highlight his problems throughout the year. *t the end of the academic session teachers are sub2ected to transfer and re ad2usted based upon the norms fi-ed by the department with the intension to infuse new energy among the teachers besides fulfilling

the need of teachers at appropriate places. 3nfortunately the transfer norms are never followed properly and it is a known fact that only those teachers are transferred who don+t have proper contacts with the people at the helm of affairs despite the fact that their stay is immature and the school needs their presence. The wrong implementation of transfer policy has lead to the seemingly shortage of teachers at some places and heap up at many places. It is an admitted fact that this irrational distribution of staff is one of the main problems facing the school education department. #hy don+t our bureaucracy and political leaders take necessary measures to help the department in the rationali4ation process when they know that it is the single factor that has rotten the system from within. 5o doubt some of the teachers are ready and eager to work for the betterment of the education system and they don6t find any encouraging atmosphere either in schools or in offices.7resently rationali4ation of the staff in government schools has become indispensable for the successful functioning of the ailing government education system. There are many teachers who are eager to volunteer on priority basis to work in needy schools for a fi-ed time period so that the initiative of rationali4ation of staff gets a 2ump start. In this direction an initiative was taken up by some CE.s in their respective dristricts but that too proved to be a big flop because of the beaurocratic and political interference.In order to make the concept of rationali4ation of the staff ,accountability of teachers and the administration a reality, our teacher community along with their forums in cooperation with the community need to launch a comprehensive campaign that would struggle for the betterment of our derailed education system. The teachers are very much eager to serve the poor children enrolled in our school education department but it needs the support and cooperation of various stake holders including the baurecracy and political leaders.#hile making transfers the basic norms be taken into consideration, that unfortunately seems a distant dream in the present school administrative setup. *nother gruesome issue concerning the education department is too much involvement of teachers in non8academic activities such as election duty, census, and various other government surveys. 1esides these some of the teachers are being permanently deputed to other departments such as revenue department as 1oot 'evel .fficer+s% 1'.(that adds more severity to the ailing education system. In government sector we already have less number of working days due to the fre/uent holidays and strikes and therfore under such

conditions involving teachers in non academic activities waste a lot of their academic work that inturn affects the innocent students studying in government schools and makes them unable to compete with the students from private sector and rest of the country. Teachers are also used for management and serving of &0&%&id 0ay &eals( in schools that affects the accademic work of the teachers as it takes a lot of time to arrange the food items for the purpose and takes months to clear the e-penditure bills in the offices. In high schools and higher secondary+s, teachers are not only used for maintaining school records but also to draw salary and other bills which usually was the 2ob of the well trained non teaching staff,who on the other hand don+t want to waste their time in these educational institutes and prefer to remain in education offices for the reasons better known to all. 3nfortunately someof the teachers are accepting these 2obs for the reasons of either due to the lack of interest in teaching or performing the 2ob under compulsion or it may be due to the fact that they wish to get all the comforts of life in a very limited time. It really hurts to see a teacher performing the 2ob of a clerk for which he was never trained. The work culture in education offices is one of the ma2or obstacles facing the education sector in their functioning ..fficial communications are often delayed that results in non accomplishment of various processes vital for the sucsssful functioning of the school.*nother vital issue which is worth mentioning is the issue of lethargy accrued in some teachers who continue to use old and outdated methodolgies and are resistant to change.0espite being trained through rigorous training programmes brought to them by R*&)* and ))*, it seems that they don6t shun their pessimistic attitude and continue to spread it to the young and energetic ones who are otherwise enthusiastic to bring in fresh hope in the ailing education department. 7roper training of teachers and strict implementation of already e-isting accountability mechanisms will help to solve this problem to a great e-tent.Isn6t it too difficult to be a good teacher in our education department9 1eing a teacher in our education system is a challenge that too when none of the accountability mechanisms are in vogue and the menaces of corruption, nepotism, redtapism etc. are rampant in these education offices. Every stake holder needs to think and act for the betterment of our education system so that the mission of dissemination of /uality education can be easily reali4ed. There is a need for a change both at the policy level and at administration level so that the

position of a teacher is restored back and our derailed system of education gets back on track. Teachers need to organi4e their efforts for sustained and effective implementation of already e-isting laws so that the poor children studying in our government schools are saved from ruination.