Skills, personality better benchmarks of student's competence: Teachers

Getting good grades in one’s tests and examinations may be a student’s idea of achieving excellence in learning.

However, their teachers, who do swell with pride at their students achievements, believe that a better gauge lay elsewhere.

Asked to list what they considered best benchmarks for evaluating student’s learning outcome in their order of preference, a good 94 per cent ticked overall skill and personality development as better benchmarks.
Providing inputs to a Pearson survey, who quizzed as many as 343 teachers, across 34 schools in City, as many as 86 per cent put preparedness for higher education and jobs above excelling in tests and exams as litmus for excellent in learning, which drew only 54 per cent, out of four benchmarks cited in the dipstick survey.

Across the State 744 teachers covering 13 cities participated.

The Pearsons Voice of Teacher’s Survey, 2014 was carried out in 247 cities across the country among 5,145 teachers.

The objective being to elicit teachers’ opinions on present state of learning and education.  
About 90 per cent of respondents agreed that the education system was too focused on examinations and less on skills and personality development.

Skill and personality development as gauge of learning outcomes in school also got most number of preferences at the State with 91 per cent, while exams/tests polled 56 per cent.

Regarding their satisfaction with stakeholders role in a student’s learning, the survey showed teachers across the State were least satisfied with parents (69 per cent) and policy makers (64 per cent) and most satisfied with students (89 per cent) and school management (81 per cent).

According to the teachers, more than half of the total numbers of students entering a particular grade (58 per cent) did not have required skills to be there thereby placing emphasis on skill development over exams. Declining  motivation and interest in students was biggest challenge in attaining preferred learning outcomes according to them.