Best students not taking up teaching profession

There is a severe scarcity of committed and qualified educators/teachers as the best students prefer to take up engineering, MBA, MBBS or such lucrative professional courses, opined Jesuit Educational Association of South Asia Secretary (New Delhi) Rev Fr Sunny Jacob.

Addressing heads of institutions at a seminar on “Challenges and Opportunities of Catholic Education in India - A Critical Response,” organised by Sylvester Tressy Frank (STF) Foundation at St Aloysius College here on Tuesday, Rev Fr Sunny Jacob said that most of the teachers who land up in teaching profession in schools/colleges were not really interested in educating students.

“Learning is not the aim, but earning is the goal for many,” he said and added that it can be remedied only when one takes initiatives to teach staff about legacy, values and vision of Catholic education.

Expressing concern over the growing communalism, he said that the ruling elite, overtly and covertly, promote a toxic mix of a neo-liberal corporate agenda and a narrow majoritarian nationalistic agenda, that undermines India’s secular democratic traditions and Constitutional values.

Textbooks changed

Stating that textbooks have been changed to propagate an ideology and spread hatred, he regretted that the rule of law has been compromised with.

“Freedom of expression is under threat as voices of dissent are silenced by the threat of cases of sedition or other kinds of litigation,” he said and added that civil society is also being silenced by various restrictions.

Fr Sunny, who is also the National Adviser for Jesuit Alumni Association of South Asia, said that new laws and rules erode the rights of minorities to administer their own educational institutions.

“Any form of affirmative action, be it budgetary allocations for minority welfare or reservation for minorities in jobs and educational institutions, is opposed and viewed as “minority appeasement,” he said.

St Aloysius Institutions Rector Rev Fr Dionysius Vaz presided over the seminar which was inaugurated by St Aloysius College principal Rev Fr Praveen Martis. Earlier, STF Foundation Convenor and Chairman Prof Edmund Frank welcomed the gathering. More than 200 persons including heads of several institutions took part in the day-long seminar.