APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY
Meetings 1.01 The Commission met at New Delhi and other places a total number of 23 tims. Each meeting normally lasted two to three days. In all 54 days were spent in discussion at these meetings. A special mention should be made of the meeting at Badkhal, Faridabad*1 from 9th September to 16th September, 1984, where a general outline of the Commission's Report and its main recommendations were finalised. The dates of the NCT-I meetings are available in Appendix-III.
Working Groups 1.02 The Commission was assisted in its work by Six Working Groups consisting both of its members and other educationists from outside. The groups were on:
I. Objectives of the Teaching Profession and the Role of Teachers.
II. Professional Excellence, Service Conditions, Security and Welfare of Teachers.
III. Status of Teachers.
IV. Training of Teachers.
V. Co-ordination.
VI. Universalization of Elementary Education.
The names of the members of the six groups are given in Appendix- I.
State visits 1.03 The Commission and its members visited 21 State capitals and two districts. The particulars of the visits are given in Appendix-V. During these visits the members held discussions with leaders and senior officials of the State Governments, Members of Legislative Assemblies and Legislative Councils, teachers, and representatives of teachers' organisations, eminent educationists and other citizens. During each tour of duty the members were also able to visit selected institutions and programmes to make an on-the-spot assessment of the over-all educational situation in the State.
Seminars 1.04 The Commission organised four seminars to give itself the benefit of exchanges with students. teachers, eminent educationists and others on its different terms of reference. The particulars of the Seminars are given in Appendix-IV.
Questionnaire 1.05 The main instrument used by the Commission to collect field data was a questionnaire containing a total of 105 questions distributed over its 12 terms of reference (See Appendix-VII). Most of the questions were of the open-ended category and were designed to solicit reflective responses on different issues. The questionnaire was distributed among others to State governments, teachers' organisations, interested voluntary organisations, primary and secondary school teachers, students, educational administrators, journalists, well-known educationists and Members of Parliament. In all nearly 20,000 copies of the questionnaire were distributed.
1.06 The original questionnaire was in English and Hindi. Some of the State governments and voluntary organisations took the initiative to print and distribute the same in regional languages before finalising their own views.
1.07 In all 2853 returns were received and analysed. The category-wise distribution of the returns is given in the table below.
TABLE 1
Showing number of returns received from different sources
S.No. Category Number of
returns
1. Primary School Teachers 202
2. Secondary School Teachers 1,346
3. Teacher Educators 661
4. Students 24
5. teachers Organisations 43
6. Educational Administrators 315
7. Educationists & Prominent Citizens 261
8. Parliamentarians 1
2,853
1. A Suburban town in the Haryana State, 25 kms. from Delhi.
2 THE TEACHER AND SOCIETY
1.08 The Statewise distribution of returns worked out as follows:
TABLE II
Showing number of returns from States
S.No. State Numbers
1. Andhra Pradesh 137
2. Assam 55
3. Bihar 96
4. Gujarat 287
5. Haryana 76
6. Himachal Pradesh 23
7. Jammu & Kashmir 16
8. Karnataka 92
9. Kerala 169
10. Madhya Pradesh 311
11. Maharashtra 504
12. Manipur 13
13. Meghalaya 54
14. Nagaland 2
15. Orissa 111
16. Punjab 83
17. Rajasthan 159
18. Sikkim -
19. Tamil Nadu 108
20. Tripura 10
21. Uttar Pradesh 416
22. West Bengal 95
23. Andaman and Nicobar 2
24. Arunachal Pradesh 11
25. Goa 4
26. Delhi 34
27. Chandigarh 73
28. Mizoram 47
2,988*
* 135 of these returns were received late or were incomplete and hence could not be included in the analysis. The number actually analysed was 2,853 (2988-135-2853).The word State in this Report covers Union Territories.
1.09 The Commission received a large number of memoranda from interested individuals and organisations from different parts of the country. Of these 88 were from teachers' organisations and were distributed as follows:
Primary/ Secondary/ Mixed Total
Elementary Higher
Secondary
All India 2 1 7 10
Zonal - 5 7 12
State 7 27 32 66
Total 9 33 46 88
1.10 The 10 All India Teachers' Organisations' are: (i) All- India Federation of Elementary Teachers' Organisations, Patna; (ii) All-India Primary Teachers' Federation, Patna; (iii) All-India Secondary Teacher Federation. Cuttack; (iv) National Coordination Committee of Indian Teachers' Organisation, Bhubaneswar; (v) All-India Science Teachers' Association, Delhi; (vi) Indian National Teachers' Congress (School Teachers, Delhi Wing), New Delhi; (vii) All-India Federation of Educational Association, Kanpur; (viii) All-India Teachers' and Educational Workers Congress, Calcutta; (ix) All-India Urdu Teachers' Association, Hyderabad; (x) Bhartiya Sikhan Mandal. Pune. The names of the Zonal and State Organisations are given in Appendix XII.
Layout of the Report 1.11 The first Term of Reference in the Government Resolution enjoined upon the Commission the responsibility to lay down "clear objectives for the teaching profession with reference to the search for excellence, breadth of vision and cultivation of values in keeping with the country's heritage and ideals of democracy. secularism and social justice". We felt that the scope of this Term could be essentially and purposefully covered in a Chapter to be called "National Goals and the Role of the Teacher". This is Chapter II of our report.
1.12 Implicit in any disscussion of the role of a teacher in education are a number of assumptions regarding the structure of education as it ought to be. In order to make our assumptions clear, we found it necessary to address a short chapter to this matter. Chapter III entitled "Towards a New Design of Education" suggests a number of criteria for designing a national system of education with greater relevance and sensitivity to the socio-economic needs of our people. Many of our comments and observations in this Chapter also bear directly on Term 8.
1. 13 A theme which is specifically mentioned in Term 1 and is very clearly implied in Term 9 is that of social justice. As an important component of social justice. one of our re-occupations in this report has been with the provision of universal elementary education (UEE) and the problems faced in, recruiting a sufficiently large number of teachers to reach this goal. While no specific Term of Reference in Government Resolution refers to UEE, we felt that this programme is of such a crucial importance not only for education but for every other aspect of the nation's progress that no serious attempt to delineate the future role of the teacher would be complete, if it did not at the same, time spell out this responsibilities in this particular area. This is what Chapter IV "Social Justice: Universalisation of Elementary Education" of our Report seeks to do.
1.14 Terms 2, 4 and 12 concern the status of the teacher and, ways and means of improving it so that the profession is able to attract and retain persons
APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY 3
of ability and character. Chapter V of our report carries the title "The Status, Working Conditions and Welfare of Teacher". The next chapter, Chapter VI, is addressed to the examination of different aspects of the supply and recruitment of elementary and secondary teachers.
1.15 Concerns about the training of teachers and their in-service education are reflected in terms 3. 5. 6, 7 and 9. While Chapter VII deals with the pre-service training of primary and secondary teachers, Chapter VIII is a presentation on the importance that we attach to in- service teacher education, and the programmes we consider necessary for responding to the colossal need.
1.16 Term 10 expects the Commission to "identify the role of teachers' organisations in professional growth and professional consciousness". While Term 11 requires us to "look into the feasibility of evolving an acceptable and implementable code of conduct for teachers". As the two Terms are inter-related we thought it advisable to examine the basic issues in a single chapter called "Society's Expectations of the Teacher" which is Chapter IX of our Report.
1.17 Throughout our deliberations we have been keenly conscious of the need to present clearly at the end of our report the administrative and financial implications of our major recommendations. We do this in the hope that the elaboration of these implications will facilitate a proper consideration of our recommendation and help in decision making. The self-explanatory title of our last chapter, Chapter X, therefore, is "Translating Words into Actions: Implications for Implementation".