There is a noticeable decline in values and ethics apart from discipline among school students, and teachers themselves feel this growing tendency.
About 42 per cent of teachers feel that the number of students who don’t give importance to values and ethics is increasing by the day, while 38 per cent teachers feel discipline has become a major issue to tackle with. These observations come from the Pearson Voice of Teacher Survey 2016 conducted across the country in July-August 2016. The survey elicited the views of 6,494 teachers from schools and higher education institutes across 546 cities and towns. It covered 49 cities in Andhra Pradesh and 24 cities in Telangana.
The survey outcome also reveals that 29 per cent of the teachers feel excessive use of personal gadgets by students is the key deterrent to student engagement, while 12 per cent of teachers attribute it to lack of parental support. The survey included 12 key inhibitors to engagement. Excessive use of personal gadgets by students, lack of parental support and too much pressure to perform are identified as top factors for low student engagement.
Lack of parental support (43 per cent) is a much bigger barrier to student engagement in government schools, followed by challenges faced by students outside of school (13 per cent) and their past performance (11 per cent). Teachers also rue that they don’t get adequate training. About 49 per cent respondents revealed that they prefer better training. Adequacy of teacher training is perceived to be much higher among school teachers (70 per cent) than higher education teachers (30 per cent), the survey claimed.
Silver lining
As a silver lining, 59 per cent of overall teachers surveyed believed that the student engagement level has increased in the past five years, and this feeling is more among private school teachers than the government teachers. While private school teachers have identified use of real-life examples and stories, group discussions and use of technology platforms as the most useful tools and techniques, teachers at government schools have assigned highest importance to counselling sessions with students, regular teacher trainings and audio-visual content for building student engagement.
Interestingly, Telangana emerged on the top in the country with the survey revealing that 63 percent students are actively engaged in learning while it is 52 percent in Andhra Pradesh.
