Comment by raghava
15 years ago
In India, usually people who could not land a plum corporate job would resort to teaching (UG level) and they are entrusted with the job of shaping the next batch of engineers/artists. Also, teaching as a job is not greatly rewarding financially, hence it is not a popular choice. One could only imagine the outcome.
To state the facts, a school teacher teaching 4/5th grade kids would hardly be given a $150 salary. In second tier cities, it's even lesser.
I would say, not just this, but there is also a huge difference in the line of thought and a tendency to resign oneself to fate, among Indians. That is almost always part of the upbringing. The ones landing up as teachers would resign to their fates and stop (and resist vehemently) any attempt to keep oneself up-to-date or develop their skills.
And the sad part is, even the interested ones are forcibly turned into indifferent ones, due to various socio-cultural changes presently seen in the economically shining nation.
A relevant article: http://www.hindu.com/op/2011/04/24/stories/2011042453622000....
I am also a person who did most of his schooling/college in India. I also have a masters degree from here in the US.
First of all $150 seems meager from the standard of living seen here in America, but an average Indian much makes less per month and food and groceries are dirt cheap in India compared to US, so 150$ is not as bad as it seems to be. In many towns you can have a fantastic meal for under $1. However, teachers are probably paid lesser than they should be in India compared to its standard of living!
Now, to tackle the other question : Does India's school system stifle interest and creativity? To a certain extent Yes. There is not as much emphasis on rational thinking and creativity as you would hope to see. Its getting better, but, to be fair, many people do quite well in spite of such a system. For one - Text books are not inaccurate like how Feynman experienced in Brazil. Most of them are scientifically correct even though I am not sure how well it is broken down so that an ordinary person can understand it.
In India, there is a system in place to provide benefits for "backward castes". This includes reservations in Colleges/Universities and in various other places. So what is happening is that there are disproportionately large number of people trying to compete for those seats that are not reserved(<50%). These people who manage to get to the top tend to be very competent. [Think about it as a billion people fighting for resources that have reservation]. So in a way that explains why India is still producing top class Engineers or scientists but an average Engineer or a scientist may not fare very well globally.
$150 an hour? A day? A week? A month? A year?
I think he means a month. FWIW, I know primary school teachers making half that much in Bangalore.
Oops! Should have mentioned it, as microarchitect said, it's per month.
> In India
Wait, what about in the united states? Sure colleges may have great professors, but what about our lower education which people go through for 80% of their life's education, for many its 100%. Those people are underpaid, and have no incentives to be good, only to get good test pass rates from students on mandatory tests.
I went though highschool getting high 90s in English, and at start of college realized my writing is absolutely atrocious. It took one brilliant seasoned professor drilling us in thinking "right" when it comes to writing to break us out of our old shitty habits. The same happened in math, and I had a professor who just made math enjoyable and applicable to life. Compared to highschool and before... I just knew it, I was good at understanding it, so I just aced it all, it was just numbers and information. There was no interest sparked until college.
Now I am looking for schools for my daughter. And honestly I am looking for those that pay teachers well and have no long-term contracts. That means one thing: perform well or die. Its like programming, if you only hire programmers for prices nobody wants to work at, you will get the bottom of the barrel who could not succeed, so why think they will make your company succeed?