Addressing Scarcity and Unequal Distribution of Teachers in Rural Areas

One of the biggest concerns of educators across the world, and especially in India, is making the present generation learners future-ready. India is relatively young as a nation with around 28 million youth population being added every year. More than 50 per cent of its population is below the age of 25 and more than 65 per cent are aged below 35. In 2020, the average age of an Indian is expected to be 29 years, while it will be 37 for China and 48 for Japan.

However, India's high youth population won't be of help to the economy if universal education is not achieved all over India. The main problem India now faces is that all the pedagogical innovations are fit to improve the quality of urban education while the rural learners and their education remain largely neglected.

With 65 percent of the population residing in rural India, education there truly deserves much more attention, especially when it is plagued with so many problems - dearth of teachers, teacher absenteeism and poor quality of teachers.

Challenges faced by teachers

Low pay grade

Most of the schools in rural areas are run by the government. They appoint ad hoc teachers, instead of permanent ones, who are poorly paid as compared to the huge remuneration of a full-time teacher.

To start with, meager incomes lead to education taking a backseat. Parents tend to see education as an expense rather than an investment. They would rather have the children work and earn. When it comes to higher education, lack of good institutes close by means students have to look at shifting to cities, which adds to their expenses. This leads to low rates of enrollment and higher dropout rates.

Moreover, promising career prospects, which is quite a motivation booster, is almost nil for the non-permanent teachers. This leads to dissatisfaction, eventually resulting in a dearth of teachers because they move away to more permanent jobs.

Absenteeism

Lack of accountability of teachers and school authorities has raised the rate of absenteeism. Teachers in the rural sector are paid poorly when compared to teachers in the urban area.

This is a demotivating factor when it comes to retaining quality teachers.

The lack of attendance of teachers and students is a vicious circle. At times teachers do not attend the school because students are not present and at times it is the opposite.

Multiple duties

Moreover, non-teaching duties like election invigilation often keep teachers away from schools. Furthermore, teachers often have to report for duty far away from their home. With an inadequate transport system in rural India, the distance only adds to their woes and often results in absenteeism.

Due to the poor quality of teachers, students in the rural sector tend to suffer. This is one of the problems of education in rural areas. It leads to the poor quality of learning amongst students.

The biggest challenge for these students is their inability to express their thoughts freely.

The problem is that their minds are not cultivated to curiosity. For most of them, education is reading books and memorizing concepts.

So innovative yet concrete ways for learning must be implemented.

BharatCares Teaching Volunteers

Bharat e-Shiksha, a flagship initiative under BharatCares (by SMEC Trust) aims to make quality education accessible to underprivileged students through a network of digitally-empowered teachers named - Bharat e-Shiksha Volunteers (BEVs).

The programme targets learners from government schools, with a special focus on classes 6th to 10th. It also provides sustainable livelihood prospects for aspiring-emerging-experienced Bharat e-Shiksha Volunteers (BEVs) to fuel their aspirations.

BEVs are volunteers/educators with rich teaching experience. They are the true change agents, making a real difference in tackling one of India’s most pressing challenges — educational inequity due to the digital divide. Their duties vary from conducting baseline research to identifying potential learners to facilitate learning and conducting periodic assessments to monitor the progress of the students.