Licensing teachers

The Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) seems to have already initiated the task of issuing "teaching licenses" to teachers who have been employed in public schools. The government last October amended the Education Act, pointing out that successive governments have practised rampantly discriminatory and unfair means while recruiting teachers in public schools. This amendment, which recommends a licensing mechanism, has come into force since early February. The legislation in its new form underlines that every government school teacher, regardless of current post or qualifications, has to obtain a permanent teaching license within five years. To acquire this license, a teacher must undergo a written examination. A large number of government school teachers have been teaching on the strength of fake certificates. The new licensing system is a bold attempt to curb such practices. But, how fair, impartial and practical such a system will be remains to be seen. Will it degenerate into another form of corruption that breeds more teachers with fake certificates than prevents them from teaching at all? For one thing is already clear. TSC will be hard pressed to get rid of political interference while issuing teaching licenses, however determined it might be at the outset. Cronyism, favouritism and nepotism have been rampant in this country for too long for them to be wished away at one stroke. Any appointment - be it that of a teacher or an official — is always influenced heavily by the political ideology of the prospective appointee, especially since the restoration of democracy.

Any move to terminate the services of teachers who only have fake certificates is an encouraging step towards ensuring better quality in our education. But TSC has yet to outline any measures for curbing widespread discriminatory and unfair practices. A licensing mechanism may also not be as transparent as TSC claims. And it is not the discriminatory approach alone that has ruined the education system. It is too poor a system to meet the needs of the country’s development. The government has neither set up adequate facilities for training teachers on a regular basis, nor is any institution in place for conducting intensive research into school curriculum or syllabi, highlighting flaws in the system. What successive governments have done is establish public schools as recruiting grounds for political cadres who often come with fake certificates. All attempts to improve the quality of education in this country have failed to yield substantive results. Every change in government has affected the quality of our education as a result of poor policies and ineffective laws. But the government can no longer take education so lightly. It has to set up institutions where it can train teachers properly and introduce effective syllabi that are appropriate to the needs of students, teachers, parents and the country as a whole. Merely raising the literacy rate, while good in itself, will not be enough to help realise this country’s overall developmental ambitions.