Regularity Of The Teacher In The Classroom

This is the era of science and technology. Nowadays all over this world, education is a way of standard living of the human being. The development without education is not sustainable in the country. The developing country like Nepal has so many educational policies, which help to improve the living standard of the people. Similarly in the developed country the educational policies have brought drastic change of the living standard of the people by the better implication of those policies. The paper policies are much better in our country but the real aspects of education is not effective (source). Most of the community schools of Nepal have experienced teacher. In a recent study we found that about 25% teachers in public schools have teaching experience of 25 years or above (source). But the regularity of the teacher in the classroom is very poor. Because of the well monitoring of the governmental sector, lack of well management, physical facilities, better incentives and so on they do so (source). Even in Kathmandu valley the teacher who is still teaching on a community school, they are teaching in higher schools or colleges except their own schools because they have more qualification and better chances to earn money (source). But their school can’t give that type of opportunity. So at those schools the teachers are not regular in the class (source). In this sense, it could be said that the irregularity of the teacher is directly related to the achievement of the students.

In the context of Nepal there are three forms of schools. One is the government supported schools, which we often call as public or community-based schools, second is the privately managed schools, which we call as private or institutional forms of schools and the third type is the religious form of schools, which could either be government supported or the privately managed. Thus, in summary we could say that our school system is divided into two parts, one being supported from the government and the other running autonomously or privately.

Private schools have well managed system, physical facilities, trained teachers, better monitoring system compared to community schools (source). Though in community schools, teachers are qualified and experienced but supervision or the monitoring system is not better (source). Except some community schools, the facilities and management is not better like in private schools in more community schools. Out of 365 days in a year, the teacher must be present in a school at least 220 days. However, research shows that the average attendance of teachers ranges from 120 to 200 days depending upon the nature of the teacher (source). With this attendance, it could be felt that the achievement level of the student has been directly or indirectly hampered. There could be various reasons why teachers remain absent for a long time in the school. First, the non-practicality of the education, which teachers’ felt was leading nowhere, could be one reason. Second, the existing political crisis in the country could have led teachers migrate to other places or provided fear amongst them to come to the school could be another reason. (source).

In Nepal if the educational policies have been tightly implemented in community and private school it could have helped improved the regularity of teachers in the classroom. Basically focusing on the community schools the incentives should be provided to the teachers, then that can help to the teachers to attain their class regularly. Except other things regular monitoring system and the incentives may help to the regularity in the classroom of the teachers and then we can expect that the level of students’ achievement will be improve. In these days the government of Nepal has allocated 16.8% of its total budget on education, which do not feel like adequate enough for the community-based schools. In India the educational budget is at least 22 to 26% of the total budget. Similarly in USA the government allocates 30 to 33% budget to education sector. In this regard, the budget in education sector of Nepal also needs to be increased so that it could help improve the achievement level of the community based schools students. There are so many challenges to improve the level of the student’s achievement except above-mentioned problems. The regularity of the teacher in the classroom is a most important factor for achievement level of the students.

In private schools the educational policies are more authoritarian than the community schools because of their own perspectives (source). But the community-based schools must follow the rules and regulation formulated by the national government. The budget and the monitoring system also implement on the basis of their own objectives in private schools likewise in community schools the management committee or the teachers can’t do so.

It is real that the teacher who works in the private school, s/he can’t get more leisure or the holidays than the community based schools teacher. If the teacher wants to get more leisure from the school, his/her job may not secure. It means the negligence of the community based teacher is greater than the private school’s teacher. This type of regularity has affected the achievement level of the student’s directly basically in difficult subject matter. The learning achievement status or the result of the student in private schools has greater than the community schools. That may be the reason of teacher’s regularity except other activities of the teacher and students. That’s why the regularity of t he teacher in the classroom is one of the affecting factor of the student’s achievement.

1.1 Statement of the problem

In our country, as already stated above there are three forms of schools: public, private and religious. However, this research will only focus on the achievement levels of the students from the community based schools. As I have already mentioned above, there are two major factors that are directly related to the achievement status of the students. One of them is the regularity of the teacher in the classroom, also called as teacher-driven aspects and another is the student driven aspects. It is said that “if the regularity of the teacher in the classroom, the level of student’s achievement is always better (source along with page number where you copied it from)” but that may or may not be possible in these days. Not only in the private schools but also in community based schools, if the teachers are regular in their classroom the learning status of the student’s improves. With the help of the teacher the student can practice new thing, doing new thing and also learning new thing. Without the regular presence of the teacher in the class, students face various problems. Teacher is a guide, director and is also a good helper for the students. So the regularity of the teacher is necessary in the classroom. It is into this regard I find teachers’ irregularity in the classroom as a major problem and it where I want to explore through this research.

1.2 Rationale of the Study

This research focuses on the regularity of the teacher and its impact on the effectiveness of the students on community schools. This type of research can give better idea to improve the achievement level of the students. It is through the output of this research, community based schools, theirs teachers school management committees and the students can be benefitted. In real situation the teachers are irregular or regular in the classroom and the achievement level of the student is actually poor or, the researcher will try to find out these aspects. So to identifying the regularity of the teacher is affecting factor in relating towards achievement level of the students or not in community based schools of Kathmandu valley, is the rational of this study

1.3 Objectives of the study

There are 3 major objectives of this study and they are

1. To find the degree of teachers’ regularity in the classroom;

2. To explore the achievement status of the students in those schools, and

3. To find the major factors that are influencing the achievement level of the students

1.4 Limitation and Delimitation of the study

Limitation of the study

The Flash report from 2009-2010 AD shows that there are more than 4,000 (check this number, it could be more that 26,000) community-based schools in Nepal. The Flash reporting system collects information from all the schools of the country and hence is a major source of educational information of the country. Similarly Flash report shows that there are (give numbers) thousands of teachers who are teaching in those schools. Since, it is impossible to reach all the community based schools and to visit all the teachers of those schools, I have drawn some representative samples through which I will forward my research.

Delimitation of the study

This study is delimited only in the community-based schools at Kathmandu valley. The researcher has selected only 50 community based schools and the students of grade 6,7and 8 of those schools in the study. Similarly, the researcher has selected those teachers who are teaching in grade 6, 7 and 8 only. Also, the researcher has selected the principle or the head teachers from those schools.

2. Review of related Literature

The Flash report has provided a lot of information on the status of teacher and the students of Nepal. The report says that the distribution of teachers by sex and levels of education is not proper. In 2008-09 there were a total of 207,567 teachers at all levels of school of which, only 33.2% were female. This percentage shows the need for promoting female teachers in the country. The proportion of female teachers is highest in Kathmandu Valley where 55.4% of total teachers are female and lowest in Mountain where females comprise only 23.7% in total teachers. Except Kathmandu Valley, all other regions have the proportion of female teachers lower than the national average. Regional distribution of all-level total teachers show that Hill have highest number of teachers (44.6%) followed by Terai (32.0%), Kathmandu Valley (14.3%) and Mountain (9.1%).

Considering the level wise distribution of teachers, there are altogether 37,068 teachers at lower secondary schools. The proportion of female teachers in total teachers of the lower secondary level is 9142 that comprises to only 13.3% of the total teachers. This data shows that the teachers are not well regular in their schools because in mountain and hilly region there are a few teachers only run their schools and in Terai and Kathmandu valley there are enough teachers in a single school.

Student teacher ratio is also shows that the regularity of the teacher in the classroom is not better. The flash report shows that in community-based schools the STR for all levels community schools is 40.7. Exactly in lower secondary level the STR is 49.2. So in lower secondary level school there is highest STR. The district level analysis shows there are 32 districts with the lower STR than in the national average (1:40.7). This status also shows that the ratio of the student and teacher is not appropriate and it is directly affect to the students’ achievement. For more details this table can give clear idea (This is not true as STR doesn’t tell anything about the regularity of the teacher in the classroom).

Gender Parity Index in the participation of teaching profession is an important index in the school education system. The GPI for all teachers at all levels of schools is just 0.50 – half the parity value and indicating how discriminatory the situation is for female teachers. Unlike all other regions, Kathmandu Valley show more female teachers than the males (GPI – 1.24). Mountain shows the lowest GPI value of all regions. This status shows that if there is much numbers of teachers, the negligence is increase and also if there are not available resources the achievements of the students is not better.

Internal efficiency at lower secondary level

Out of total students enrolled in the year 2007-08 in grade One, 59.6% are promoted to grade Two, 28.3% are repeating the same grade the next year, and 12.1% dropped out from the school. The data thus show that as high as 40% of total enrolled students in grade one could not continue in grade two illustrating the high wastage in the system. However, situations are comparatively better in upper grades (from grade 2 to 10) where the wastage in terms of student-years is comparative low indicating that grade One is more critical in terms of students flow. A distinct gender pattern can be observed across the grade. In all primary grades promotion rate is higher for girls but in higher grades promotion rate is higher for boys with some exceptions. Compared to the previous school year the promotion rate at primary grades has increased. District wise, the flow rates vary from district to district and between regions.

The survival rate is one important indicator of the effectiveness of the teaching learning process as well as the retention of students in the school system. The data show that the overall survival rate to grade five is 70.2%. The survival rate to grade 5 is higher for girls than for boys. This indicates that the survival rate to grade 5 is slightly lower than in the previous school year. This is because of formula used to calculate the survival rate. In this the standard method; Reconstructive Cohort Method, developed by UNESCO is used to calculate the value of this indicator whereas in previous year the proxy method was used.

This report shows that the STR and the achievement level of the students in community based schools. The class repetition rate and the dropout rate show that the achievement level of the students is not satisfactory. So irregularity of the teacher is one of the major factor of class repetition and dropout of the child.

The researcher has selected the community-based school and teachers within the students to complete this research. Community based schools of the Kathmandu valley are focusing in this research. Among them only 50school and the students of those schools who are reading on grade 6, 7 and 8 are the population of this study. Similarly the head teacher or the principles of those schools are also the population .The researcher has drawn the concept of this research as follows;