Showing posts with label religious-studies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religious-studies. Show all posts

Friday, 15 May 2015

Why is there shortage of teachers in UK schools?



Earning money is not always linked with knowledge. Especially, if the knowledge is abstract and theoretical, seeing the practical life from a bird's eye view and trying to find the underlying reality or significance of it, the root cause or nature, like in philosophy; or, like in mathematics, where truth is expressed independent of the physical world, purely from realisation, introspection or soul-search, then it is of little practical use in an increasingly materialistic world.

Love of wisdom has been replaced by love of money, and as people become more and more hedonistic, scores of people are making their way from basic sciences to commerce and technical fields. But, for character building and providing basic foundational theoretical knowledge for application, study in general line is essential. As applicational subjects with tangible practical effects in the material world, become more and more popular, for making money, in this world of information technology and also as their visible effect (presence) can be felt easily understandably, subjects apart from these key subjects providing theoretical foundation of applied sciences are lacking good teachers day by day.

As bright minds of society are indoctrinated and attracted towards cheap material publicity and fame and glory and satisfaction, in this shallow society, apart from especially devoted ones, schools and colleges and universities alike face shortage of dedicated teachers on theoretical, unproductive, but enlightening subjects, that might awaken and illuminate conscious cognition of the real, original ideal pure enough and uncontaminated of practical perversions.

Reflecting on the practical problem

Subjects or fields that are specifically facing the problem of shortage of teachers, are as follows :

1) First comes foreign languages, that are especially at risk in facing shortage of teachers. As these subjects are specifically selected by those who are amateur in nature, pursuing the discipline just for the sake of knowledge and appreciation of beauty and aesthetics and depth and accuracy, devoted learners and scholars of that disposition who can teach, are becoming harder to find.

2) Subjects in 'religious-studies' department are finding it hard too to find teachers, as those are struggling to keep its relevance in this increasingly more and more secularised world.

3) Subjects like 'Geography' also are in the list of sufferers.

The practical problem in hike in fees and resulting hike in number of dropouts in graduation courses, has exacerbated the problem of getting qualified teachers in respective fields, as cause.

The General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, explains the problem of teacher shortage : “I have spoken to numerous headteachers who have had no applicants at all for non-core subjects. I recently spoke to one who was looking for a geography teacher and he just couldn’t get one single applicant.”

Surmounting the problem is the fact that people, even competent ones, are avoiding taking responsibility in highly-reputed schools, as the obvious cause of shunning accountability for even marginal failure to fulfil high expectation with rigour. 

To explain this he adds, “Teachers are very aware of the pressures that come with those high-performing schools and the workload that arises from that. Some people are put off by what they see as heavy-handed accountability and the long-hours culture.”

All in all, UK is facing unheard of problem of recruiting qualified teachers in schools, like never before.

Source Credit: bit.ly/1amDDxL