Doctor, engineer, administrator or in any other good job.

Long long ago there was a time when the teacher was the most revered person not only for the students but for the entire society. But nowadays position of teacher has become ridiculous. Along with teaching he is doing different duties such as going door-to-door for giving pulse polio drops to infants, doing assigned duties for election work, conducting different surveys for the government etc.

Apart from this nowadays students are often irreverent to their teachers. Our young generation is also loath in adopting teaching profession because in comparison to technical and administrative services the future prospects are not bright in it.

In other posts like collector, engineer, doctor there is money and lot of facilities. In private sector exploitation of teachers has gone to such an extent that they are getting lesser salaries in comparison to a labourer.

It is often said that a good teacher is a student throughout his life. Today teachers are also not sincere towards teaching, they never prepare themselves for teaching students that's why they don't get respect from their students.

On account of all these things there is no charm in this nobel profession. Teachers are the builders of our nation so the government should provide them facilities and salaries at par with other technical and administrative jobs. And we should appoint cream of academicians in this profession so that it may become charming profession for all.

Daniel Barretto:Today teaching is no longer considered as a charming profession as over the years the teacher-student relationship has undergone a drastic change. In earlier times the teacher-student relationship used to be like one of a parent-child relationship where the teacher used to impart knowledge to the student not only for his intellectual development but also to develop his whole personality in the most integrated way.

In turn the student used to have a great respect for the teacher and this respect used to boost the morale of the teacher. Also, the teachers got a great deal of satisfaction from the fact that they were responsible for forming good individuals. But, in these modern times of competition teachers only impart knowledge which will help the student to score good marks while neglecting character formation. Also, teachers are more interested in making money through tuitions rather than really contributing to the growth of the individual.

The student in turn views the teacher as only a means to help him to get through the exams with flying colours. As a result of all this the personal touch in the relationship between a teacher and student is lost and teachers no longer get the inner satisfaction or respect that the teachers in earlier times used to get through their profession. Theses I feel are the main reasons that the teaching profession has lost its charming aspect.

MR Nair:`Mata, Pita, Guru, Daivam'. Guru or present day teacher was third in the line of worship to us Indians. That was what we were taught in our childhood. Not any more. In the good old days, the whole society used to respect the guru for his devotion to duty to mould the children a good citizen of tomorrow. These days only his students know and respect him. There are several reasons for the change in the attitude. One and foremost thing is that there is not much money in this profession now. The second one is that the teacher is lacking in devotion to duty towards his students and the society. And he cannot be blamed for it!

When everything is weighed in the scale of money, how can the teacher be different? The more money you earn the more you are respected. The means with which you are earning money is immaterial. The economic theory of `demand and supply' applies here too. Moreover, at least some of the private educational institutions are more interested to collect a fat fee from the students than to impart quality education.

In MP a new post of `Shiksha Karmi' (teacher worker), with meager salary has been created. It is exploitation of the unemployed. In this scenario, the teacher, teaching and the respect to teacher has become the victim. Teaching has become nothing but another job for living. And still you expect teaching a charming profession today?

Joydeep Majumder:Teaching is the indispensable profession that makes all other professions possible. We believe that qualified, compassionate, and dedicated teachers only ensure our child's target for the challenges and opportunities ahead and prosper in the economy of a country. But, in today' world, we all are striving for good livelihood and make money. It's also true that none thought teachers came into education for money, though they deserve a lot more.

However, in teaching profession, standardized remuneration starting from the poorest to best teachers equally, with no standard other than time served doesn't make a sense. Naturally this approach produces too many in numbers but demoralizes our best teachers to find the profession charming. And, in the run, we are deviating from our motive just when we feel; the teachers would do their most productive work. Teachers would accept recognition and respect to go forward to become a great teacher and find the worthiness of their profession. Some pragmatic ways should come out for this profession to regain its lost luster and the biggest winners will be the students who are our future workforce for laying the foundation for good citizenship and full participation in community and civic life.

Nishchal Gupta:Teaching is considered to be a noble profession. This profession requires qualities like dedication, sacrifice and hard work which are often seen rare in this materialistic world. Whereas in today's world a person's status is decided by the money or the wealth, he/she possesses. This materialism ie importance to money has gripped the masses and the values of life has taken a back seat. As a consequence, people are turning towards other means of livelihood as profession. The profession of teaching is losing its charm because of faulty government policies too. Earlier, the best and talented students wanted to enter the noble profession of teaching but in the present times the scenario is totally opposite. Teachers are not well and timely paid. It is unfortunate that the best brains of our country are not at all interested to join teaching as profession. Not only this, they are always looking for greener pastures.

To make teaching profession charming to the Youth, service conditions, salary and other facilities should be made competitive with other so called sought after professions.

John D: 'External teacher offers only suggestions which make the internal teacher to work to understand things'- Swami Vivekananda.

Yes, this is the reality of a teacher who imparts knowledge to pupils at various levels in different disciplines and helps to bring out the best from students. Teaching is certainly the most demanding and challenging job with the virtue of commitment and loyalty to oneself and to others.

In view of wiping away ignorance and illiteracy from the mind and heart of the students and imparting knowledge that enlightens everyone to create a better place to live-in, teaching profession marches ahead with various means and methods by making its vision distinct day by day. And so, it involves and demands the art of systematic thinking, logical reasoning and coherent presentation of knowledge to others: Moreover, patience in making the doubts of students clarified and make pupils understand and explore further from what is taught and learnt are in no way charming rather it is a magnanimous act. Only through teaching (of any sort) all pupils come to know and experience the reality in its totality with their constant effort, hard work, perseverance, get-out of the bondage of ignorance and look forward for better future.

So, how can it be a charming job? When it is charming, it gets deviated from its essence and purposes. Therefore, teaching is the job of commitment and not of entertainment and so, it has to be upheld and treated with its due respect and dignity.

Subhash C Agrawal: Teaching used to be a charming human mission for creating next-gen citizens in ancient days. It is still a charming profession but for those who have devised money-minting out of teaching by earning from tuitions. It is even more a matter of shame that reports about some male teachers/professors having made relations with their female students for promoting them to next class. Even some have openly confessed all types of love-relations with their girl-students despite being resisted by their wives and children. Perhaps this is also 'charming' for such types of love-infected teachers!

Greeshma Gopal:Teaching is a sacred profession. Teachers are equivalent to God. Knowledge is worship. Teachers mould our children for future challenges in life. All these are true but today teaching a no longer a charming profession. At least in a country like India. Teachers no longer get the respect and regards from the society that they deserve.

They have been reduced to a role of a servant in a house. We pay them as if they are our servants who take care of our children when we are at office. They no longer can scold or give any bad remarks to any child if he is weak or naughty in class. They are expected to ensure that every child gets good marks however weak a child might be. Otherwise they may lose their job.

Politicians regularly interfere in the day to day activities of most of the schools in India. The teacher has no freedom to express his or her thoughts or feelings. Therefore there is no longer any charm in this profession. They are paid less which is also one of the main reasons for downfall of this sacred profession.As a result the standerd of education in this country is falling day-by-day.Today things have reached to such an extent that it is a shame for any person to call himself a teacher in our society.It is a tragedy, a shame for all of us.Teachers are like God.They impart Knowledge to us and knowledge is worship.We all should make our Government aware with the help of media and newspapers about the falling charm of a sacred profession like Teaching.They should regain their lost glory and all Teachers should again start feel proud of their profession.

RJ Khurana : Once upon a time teaching was a charming profession and those taking up teaching were the best of the lot. They took to it for the love of it and the high respect the profession enjoyed and not for money. Character building was their topmost priority. Since early 1930s materialism has taken over service in all departments of social life. There has been a rapid erosion in the standing of the profession. The best no longer choose it as a career. Poet Iqbal sensed the change and lamented:

They we bhi din jab khidmat-e-ustad ke evaz, dil

chahta tha dil pesh ke jiey,

Badla zamana aisa ki ki ladka pas us sabaq, kehta hai

master se bill pesh kijiey

The couplet is fairly simple and easy to understand. It captures the true state of the teaching profession today. Since Iqbal the profession of teaching has further fallen in charm having been overused, misused, abused and reduced to the status of one of the least attractive professions. We are paying the price in the form of rise in waywardness amongst students, violence, corruption and a host of other ills that plague our society.

PS Gaur:This question is timely. Main reasons for disenchantment towards teaching profession are as follows:

Lack of proper job avenues in the education sector befitting qualification; wages not being commensurate to the educated and teachers having experience; compulsion to teachers to work in rural areas; sometimes teachers do not get teaching work in which they are deft; denial of promotion during their long tenure; teachers are being given extra work which ultimately diverts them from their goals; not being made permanent in services even after serving for a number of years. In private educational institutions the situation is even worse. The teachers get very low wages and may be asked to go as per the whims of the managements.

At times the government teachers get transferred too often. This disturbs their family life, education of their kin.

Of late due to a number of reasons and changing social and developmental scenario, the teachers are not getting the respects they deserve.

Sushmita Shrivastava: Teaching is a very rewarding and challenging profession. But it is losing its charm in India due to several reasons. First and the most important reason is that the teachers are not well paid. Second, they are blamed for poor performance of the students. Often the teachers can do nothing to improve the performance of students, because everyone wants that his or her child should study through English medium. But the children are not able to understand the extremely tough English books.

The textbooks for children are prepared without giving a thought about their mental level. Small children of class 2 or 3 are supposed to study Dickens, Hardy and Shakespeare! Can they understand them? In such a situation the teacher feels helpless. The foundation of the child becomes weak and he continues to remain weak in studies. The teachers get low salary, due to commercialization of education and mushrooming of schools.

Large numbers of private schools recruit teachers for very low salary. In West, teachers are very well paid, like doctors, engineers etc. But in our country they are exploited and paid very little. A teacher's job is not easy. Not everyone can be a teacher. Not only must you have the passion for education, you need to know how to engage the students in their learning, be a good role model and an inspiration to them and prepare them for the challenges of life. A teacher is the heart and soul of a class, the pulse that keeps a lesson lively and engaging. Teaching as a career is an exciting journey filled with challenges and rewards. You play a critical role in nurturing the spirit of innovation and the passion for learning in our young, grooming them into all-round individuals. In turn, you will grow both as a person and a professional. The teaching profession provides a challenging and enriching career with varied fields of excellence. But, unlike West, in our country teaching is considered to be an unimportant job and so teachers are neglected. Therefore teaching is losing charm but only in our country. It is becoming more charming in foreign countries, because foreigners realise the importance of teachers.

Dr Suram Singh Verma: Today is a totally materialistic world full of corruption & nepotism. Gone are the days when a person was acknowledged for his knowledge in the society. Today a man with mussel power, money and administrative power with all show off qualities is not only respected but worshiped by the society. Teaching, so called a noble profession, in India has the lowest salaries and the least ways of corruption so it is not at all a charming profession for coming up generation whose solo motivation is to acquire all materialistic means of life and this philosophy is also well guided/motivated by their parents & society. Students attitude toward education is changing fast but teachers are also not giving their best because there is a rampant corruption in the recruitment of teachers.

Teachers are also more concerned about money making through tuitions (which students only encourage due to the reasons best known to them) and least bothered about imparting education by putting hard work in classes. Thus, overall education and teaching both have lost their significance in today's materialistic society.

Syed Aslam Shahid:The difficulties of teaching profession are notorious. It has constantly been proved that there is no season of the year which is favourable for teaching profession. Staunch defender of the noble profession may reel at the idea but people with true teachers in them are opting for call centres but not teaching profession. There was a time when teaching was seen as a pious work and people desired to join it because it gave them ample room to prove themselves. It offered them a platform to serve society and above all they could command a tremendous amount of respect. The decision to say `no to teaching profession would have been greeted with skepticism, even derision. People who made such a radical choice were accused of escaping the opportunity to help young people brighten their future.

But, all that has changed fast. The strength of people going into teaching profession has thinned dramatically, some do not want to go into thin work because it does not offer very good salary, some falter to join it because it asks for loads of patience and some avoid it for the job keeps them from enjoying their lives to the fullest. The teaching profession has lost its sheen to the extent that not many young persons have a desire to go into this profession.

Auctoritates Aristotelis said, `the touchstone of knowledge is the ability to teach, which shows how difficult task is the teaching and today people do not opt for a career on the basis of imparting knowledge, but on how much money they can extract from their work.

The word `charm stands for money and only money today and teaching and money are more or less just the opposite.

The principle enemies of the teaching profession are stated to be:

Acquisitive society; reluctance of education among students, superficiality- dominance; five-star institute culture; teachers being valued on immediate results; insecurity; poverty of the intelligent classes; parents expectations; commercialization; ambition; stupidity of the wealthy classes; multinational companies; aping the west; internet mania and sumptuously decorated coaching classes.

In spite of these difficulties it is noticed that a few young people still wish to carve a niche as devoted teachers. Yet we dont know if they find the teaching profession charming or lucrative.

Krishna Chander Mouli: There has been a traditional saying among the Indian society that a person who fails at every front of competition chooses teachership,journalism or politics as his occupation. Though this traditional saying has totally lost its relevance today since in academics, journalism and even politics there is much more competition and accountability these days supported by respectable packages.Even after the dynamic metamorphosis and competition in these three occupations, they are still most sought after only by average people , the cream opting for UPSC,PSC, competitive examinations,All India Services,government jobs,management,marketing,and industrial sectors. This situation is importantly so in respect of teaching where things have not improved to make it the most sought after occupation by the cream intellectual class.

Teaching as a professionm in India, specially in the hindi hinterland is not a charming one.The reasons are fistly in the sslection process quality based parameters are not observed..Secondly most of the appointments even to exhalted positions like Vice Chancellors,HODs,Professors are highly politicised wihout regard to the teaching calibre and capacities of persons so selected and appointed.Thirdly and most importantly teachers are blatantly used for political campaigning and other sundry jobs by various ambitious politicians of all hues and colours and the teachers also ,being average in their profession, surrender gladly before such overtures to make up their deficiency and out of greed and selfish motives distorting and destroying the very foundations of teaching as a profession.

Even in the academic heirarchy also political executive interferes in postings and promotions to the extent that ex-cadre and non-cadre people like retired I.A.S. and I.P.S. cadres are posted as V.Cs,Rectors,Deans etc. It would be in the fittest of things that senuior Professors, HODs,Deans and incumbents on such equivalent posts in the academic cadres should be considered for promotion to the posts of V.C.,Rector in the Universities,Deans in Colleges and to the administrative cadres in the education department. Then only teaching as a profession would become charming and would attract qualitative stuff.Till then we continue to be helpless to compromise with; the prevaling charmless and unattractive teaching profession and its constant decay qualitatively.

Dr Visal A Khan:To excel in the teaching field a good grasp of subject helps command the respect deserve from students, it also needs interest of students to interact. The students of modern age have many different recreation interests other than classroom therefore the teaching remains no more a charming profession. A sound knowledge area of expertise and a keen interest to keep abreast of the latest happenings and breakthroughs are failing. A healthy balance of congeniality and strictness is the best attitude but it is reacting reverse. The policy of teachers' young at heart and mind, and be able to share the students' interests don't carry meaning. All types of Erudite, Vibrant, Articulate, tried and applied by many expert teachers but they came out unsuccessful. A good teacher knows the art of capturing the attention of the students by teaching the lessons in an interesting way but the students laugh at teacher. Unless teacher derives a certain amount pleasure from teaching, cannot make learning a pleasure for the students, this policy also failed. Implementing novel methods of teaching help teacher make a lasting impression on the minds of the students but very few students understand this. Using audio-visual tools to supplement lectures, encouraging student participation by conducting seminars, and organising exhibitions, are some of the tools you could use but this interest is difficult.

Above all, a teacher has to be dedicated to the job and forget about charm of his profession, imparting knowledge and making learning a fun-experience. A certain amount of selflessness is required in mentoring the students, empathising, taking a keen interest in their activities and contributing to the overall development of the students.

In my opinion the recreating TV serials, films be modified to divert interest of students to wards creativity of knowledge. A calm and patient disposition will reduce teachers chances of getting overwhelmed or hassled. At times teacher may have to repeat whatever has been taught already, or teacher may have to help clear doubts and answer questions. This requires a good amount of patience and stamina. The students are the future of our country and to build up their career is the responsibility of teachers. They must do research work to take as project work to create interest in teachers and students so that teaching profession catches momentum.

RK Kutty:There are multifarious reasons for this. Firstly, where are those earnest seekers who spare time to sit attentively before the teachers? There was time when the pupils trembled just by the sight of a teacher who wielded terrific command control, both inside as well as outside the class rooms. Even the presence of one such teacher within the whole school/college campus was sufficient to keep the folks in calm. But, the situation today is just the opposite. Teachers are more afraid of their own students. The climax of students terror against teacher was the Ujjain incident last year. After that, the teaching community has become more defensive. From the foregoing fact, the indication is that situation would only worsen day-by-day. More and more teachers will try to go soft and avoid teaching unless they get situations conducive to do justice to their profession. The more indiscipline, insensitivity and rowdy mentality develop in school/college students, for which none else but our own rulers provide enough breeding grounds, moral strength and protection from law enforcing agencies, teaching would be the ultimate casualty. That is the reason; future conscious parents prefer to admit their wards in good convent, private/management schools/colleges. More and more teaching professionals too prefer only such institutions where at least they get some respect from the student community vis-a-vis job satisfaction and job security.

The ancient model of education like the Gurukul, where Narayan and Daridranarayan (Krishna and Sudama) could join together under one Guru was the real platform of imparting education whereby curious learners could gain the real life experience of oneness in diversities from equally honourable, enthusiastic and pious teachers.

SS Chitwadgi:I am a proud son of a teacher. Those were the days when a teacher and taught had a very congenial relation, in proof, my father's students remained faithful and affectionate even when students lived in verities of professions in their post student period.

Now, the situation is quite different and the values are changed in that there are a large number of students per teacher, the close touch is a thing of the past. Teaching is commercialized. Right from KG to the highest PhD teaching is a profession to earn money for livelihood. Besides tuition, there are a number of schools catering to those whose attendance is a casualty and yet the students get certificates of attendance to qualify for examinations. Many boys openly say nothing is taught in some schools. Some so called best schools are so crowded that attention to teaching to the extent every student has absorbed is more a myth than a fact, so tutorials are thriving. There too it is more money to gain more theoretical knowledge. Character building is none. The period one spends in this life as a student is wasted so far as character building is concerned. Every class has a few notorious who gather some kind of popularity amongst both girls and boys. They are frontline in every extra curricular activities and are nowhere good in subjects of studies and these act as a source of defaming education standards. The teachers are reconciling since these bad students often come from higher society. Now, every teacher minds his job and does not care to see the students gather knowledge /character or not. Thus teaching is no where charming, in spite of money a teacher earns. When an educated fails entry in any service becomes a teacher. Good quality teachers are rare to none because his social status, he feels, is not that he deserves.

A big piece of advice from Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen is relevant "deficiency in education and health could not be met by the expansion of private schools". Mushrooming of private schools has brought down the charm of teaching considerably.

RK Gupta: Educators are the true architects of the future of the nation. Our great leaders Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru had spared no efforts to impart most modern education to the countrymen.

Teachers are potters and it's their prime duty to give the right shape to the students. Teaching job needs the dedicated and high spirited persons who believe in simple living and high thinking. The western culture, the market economy and the unprecedented booming of the wealth in the corporate world is perturbing the serene environment of the educational institutions.

The fruit of education comes after many decades to the society and the persons concerned. However, there is no immediate monetary gains also. It is a mundane reality, notwithstanding that the money makes a mare go.

Alas! Due to the physical and the soulless material mindsets of the western countries, the teaching job is not a charming profession today.