Date:05/09/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/05/stories/2006090501700500.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

A profession for many and a passion for some

Staff Reporter

`Teachers need to have knowledge and communication skills'

Bangalore: Another Teachers' Day will be observed on Tuesday. A look at this most respected but often neglected profession.

A profession to many, teaching is a passion with some. Teachers are not empowered with academic freedom as much as they should be, says Venkatesh, a Ph. D. from IISc. in Nano-Tribology and is a Professor and Special Officer in the office of the Vice-Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University.

A teacher since his post-graduate student days in the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, as a Gate Scholarship holder with teaching assistance, he says subject knowledge combined with good communication skills and the ability to go down to the level of students are important attributes of a good teacher. "Command over English is certainly a worrisome factor for many," says Dr. Venkatesh.

Teachers must be involved in their profession, says Geetha Shankar, a senior faculty in Mathematics in a reputed engineering college in Bangalore.

Teaching mathematics for 15 years has given her immense satisfaction that she would not have derived in any other profession. "I always feel young when I see a new batch of students and happily get involved in my work and this is what is driving me till today," she says.

A friend

On student-teacher relationship, she says it must be friendly but in a well-defined framework that has respect, discipline and mutual commitment for performance.

Parents' role, cooperation and coordination with the institution and faculty members on a continuous basis are a must in bringing the best out of students, feels Geetha Shankar.

Backward integration of forward needs must be the focus of the teachers fraternity as otherwise it will tend to become an operation-success-but-patient-died fiasco, says K. Shankar, a management professional and a strong advocate of Six Sigma philosophy in education.

Shreekanth Nanguneri, a Six Sigma expert based in the U.S., says that the job of industries and corporates is only to produce from day one and not to indulge in training, which dampens the productivity to a great extent, resulting in several thousand crores of rupees being spent on training.

To accomplish this, he recommends that teachers are trained the Six Sigma way, which will not only increase the academic success and excellence but also improve the institution earnings by effective talent time utilisation and produce globally superior results in paper publication, obtaining research grants, working on patents and so on.

He feels that the institutions managements should have a burning platform to do this.