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Noted educationist and former NCERT Director Prof J S Rajput addressed the Vimarsha programme at VIF on the occasion of Teacher’s Day on September 5, 2014.

Speaking on the topic, ‘Education and Teachers: Emerging Perspectives’, he outlined the problems Indian education is facing as a fall out of practicing Macaulay’s philosophy. He lamented that Indian education system is still devoid of the philosophy that “education has to be rooted in culture and committed to progress”. Referring to the class structure within the schooling system, he said while on the one hand many children are taking advantage of the internet, on the other for many even the basic facilities of chalk and black boards are not available. We must do everything to remove this disparity and provide equal opportunity to the best education for one and all, he said.

Prof Rajput pointed out that one of the main reasons for the falling standards of the education in the country was the Government’s total apathy towards recruiting qualified teachers and handing over the entire generation to unqualified teachers on contract basis without any check, balance and monitoring. Emphasizing on the need for a massive recruitment drive for trained teachers at the school level, he said today more than 40% of the sanctioned teaching posts in the universities also are vacant and they need to be filled up with the people who have right kind of approach to education and have the intellectual bent of mind.
Quoting Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s words, “Intellectual work is not for all, it is only for the intellectually competent”, he said only such people should get a place in our universities who are intellectually equipped and competent to handle higher levels of learning, teaching and research.

Earlier, introducing the subject, Gen. N.C. Vij, Director, VIF, underlined the need for an education system which would enable the country to emerge strong in the comity of nations. Highlighting the role and importance of teacher in the Indian society, he pointed out the age old system where a teacher occupied the same place in the life of an individual as that of God and Parents. In this regard, he referred to the three rinas (debts) one owes in life – Daiva Rina, Pitra Rina and Guru Rina (Debt to God, Parents and Teacher).