There is an African saying which means “it takes a whole tribe to educate a child”. When we talk of education, we mean the formal process of enriching the minds, invigorating the thought process and transforming or improving the character, behaviour and overall personality of the students to become useful and dynamic citizens of the motherland. But are we imparting education in our society/country according to this perspective?

Everybody knows and hence bewails that the overall educational environment in our country is pathetic and precarious, particularly in the majority of government schools and colleges, and generally in many private institutions. This is how the tuition centres and evening academies mint money by coaching aimed at enabling the students to get good marks through shortcuts. This may be helpful for providing admission in professional colleges but it does not foster a healthy personality, the essential outcome of education. So what are the causes of this state of affairs?

Some people think that this deteriorating state of affairs owes to the paucity of funds allocated to education. Others believe that we as a nation lack the political will to augment our educational organisations. Few people reckon less salary given to the teachers as a cause of de-motivation for them. Some say that the quality of people joining the teaching profession is low as the students with top merit go to medicine, engineering, the armed forces, etc. A good number of people say that corruption and nepotism are great hurdles in the way of educational progression as funds allocated to education are misappropriated. Some say commercialisation in good schools has eroded the educational values, norms and traditions while making it a saleable commodity whereas education is to make people magnanimous citizens, capable of ensuring a peacefully thriving society, which can be constructed through love, affection and the spirit of sacrifice, and not through heavy fees.

All these and many more may be the contributory factors leading our educational system to the brink of collapse. However, I will dilate upon an altogether different one being the most cogent factor, which if effectively taken care of, will bring about tremendous improvement in our educational institutions without enhancement of funds. I am talking about supervision.

Supervision in our government institutions in particular and many private ones in general is totally lacking. This may be due to the complacent attitude of supervisors or due to their incompetence or unnecessary and uncalled for political and bureaucratic intervention, etc. Due to these, even the regular attendance of teachers cannot be ensured what to talk of the quality of education.

Here I will not refer to ghost institutions. I will rather discuss schools and colleges in the urban/rural areas which have some funds and facilities at their disposal. Being the institutional head, the headmaster, headmistress or principal of these schools spends negligible time with the students in the classes, laboratories, libraries and playgrounds. Therefore there is no check as to whether the personality of the students is being built or destroyed in the schools.

The institutional heads generally don’t bother to go out of their office. Perhaps they think it below their dignity. If at all they make rounds of the institution which are more ceremonial in nature in order to just show their presence. Conversely if it is made mandatory for a head teacher to spend at least four meaningful hours with the students and the same practice with different things is carried out by their deputies and senior resource persons, it will definitely have a tremendous impact on the quality of education imparted by the teachers.

This is in accordance with the style of school management that is more popular in America. Though there should be consistent guidance and counseling of the teachers in congenial and collegial manners, it in no way should be used to chase and scare the teachers because that will have a deliberating effect on the overall atmosphere of the institution.

Next is the role of the higher supervisory organisation — the directorate of education. Are these directories only supposed to do the job of posting, promotions and temporary duties of the teachers and head teachers, that too through bribes, political and bureaucratic push and pulls? Or do they have to play some kind of a supervisory role as well. They are required to plan surprise visits of these institutions to evaluate the performance of the teachers and head teachers.

There should be an external educational audit along with internal educational audit. There should be a benchmark for the students, teachers, principals and the overall institution’s performance against which the institutions are assessed and categorized. The career progression of the teachers and head teachers may be correlated with the visit reports as well.

Then comes the role of the community. Do we the community members have any responsibility to undertake the educational institutions present in our vicinity? Even as parents we do not take the trouble of visiting our own children’s schools when called there by the administration. We assume that our job is over by just paying the fee.

Not only should we make frequent visits to the school but we should also form communities to oversee the performance of these schools and colleges. In the UK they have the Queen’s audit teams which are empowered to even close down institutions if consistently found to be not coming up to the desired level of proficiency. I am not talking about something that severe. However, we can have a body of some educated people to keep an eye over the schools in our community.

And last but not the least is the role of the ministry of education which is no doubt a policy-making body. Yet it has to perform some kind of a supervisory role over the educational directorates. These should not simply be managing the grants only. They should get regular reports from the education directorates regarding the performance of the institution under their purview. These returns should be critically analysed and comprehensive reports may be sent to the directorates to ensure quality education.

Checks and balances are extremely essential to insure quality in any field. Any organisation left unbridled no matter how effective that may be is bound to deteriorate. All teaching institutions need to be efficiently supervised in order to ensure quality education. Therefore, an effective and efficient system of checks and balances is to be installed in all the teaching institutions otherwise we will keep on groping in the dark and our aim to become an enlightened nation will never be reached.

The writer is a former principal and director of schools and colleges, who has also served as director examinations.