A Letter to Teachers and Principals

Dearest Teachers

Do our revered teachers, to whom we owe everything including this critical way of looking, find conducive ambience in educational institutions? How many headmasters/principals are passionate about development of their respective institutions? How do they review work of such teachers who teach civics or sciences, or such departments as commerce and economics? How they review implementation of such goals as those of NEP or promoting entrepreneurship or teaching students to earn while they learn or review financial literacy of teachers who keep money in banks and don’t invest, who build big houses or purchase land and don’t help local industry or who don’t keep money available to interest free credit cooperatives to help people access credit without banks.

How many Principals – those who have background of economics, commerce or management – have organized scores of staff members and hundreds or thousands of students into institutional kitties (that makes good amount available to one every month) or credit cooperatives or linked them to existing credit cooperatives? How many have taken the trouble to motivate the staff to collectively or institutionally collect and spend charity to help poor students or their parents get jobs as silent or active partners in various enterprises so that fee doesn’t become an issue? They can do this Ramadhan by requesting every employee to get zakat and sadaqah al fitr (700/person, not 70 as the later is the rate for lower strata); collect and spend on cases well known to them from students or relatives of employees.

One teacher can help every month one student pay membership fee for credit cooperative but, shockingly, he/she is not himself/herself a member yet. It would take only a session of interaction with his/her staff to organize a staff kitty in which every member can pool at least 1thousand and some can pool 50 K that will be returned in multiples of six within five months if they choose, in the group of five, to link their kitty amount with a credit cooperative that acts as sixth partner and chooses to take its share last and adjusts to urgency of some member by giving additional one lac interest free loan. Since teachers differ in ability to save or contribute particular amount every month to common kitty, it is advisable and possible through CCL, to associate in the groups of four or five who pool same amount in the kitty. With this mechanism every teacher clear his/her debt obligations within a year or two saving huge money on account of interest for development of family or colleagues or relatives or local industry or just create investment amount (if they don’t have debt) to help local industry. Every teacher should be required to join such kitties for his/her or fraternity’s sake and anyone who doesn’t join is sick soul and lacks financial wisdom that requires saving for investment or planning time for other creative pursuits in life. There is much more to life than going to colleges or schools for sixty years. Beyond fifty one should be available for whole community.

Whole creation as family or ayal of God or sanyasa as an idea of being available for extended family of community or humanity need to be understood. Sitting at home after retirement as Chowkidar doing nothing but watching TV or playing with phone or sometimes with kids is a sin against God and His poor people – kids of community – who need our attention or time. A test of healthy creative personality is welcoming or opting for early retirement. I don’t think such teachers deserve our greeting wishes who have supported only their families and not two thousand or more they could through their long career. From his or her family’s zakat/ushr/sadaqah only, almost every teacher can help carve or sustain one job a year by getting membership in zero interest based Credit Cooperative or money for one share in local farm or enterprise. I know a teacher or two of angelic disposition who silently help anyone but I think they will be taken to task for not encouraging more productive use of their charities or not tying up with some other colleagues who are open to good ideas. In fact over seventy percent staff will register for a good mutually beneficial initiative (as they do for wazwan parties or retirement parties of colleagues) if other colleagues or the Principal takes necessary trouble to reach out. Let us shame those institutions from which students approach NGOs for petty help as it shows such callous disregard of them by respective institutions. Why isn’t any survey conducted by schools or colleges in the first month after admission, of the students’ families to proactively know if they need help? If they require assistance, there are groups and individuals who can be ready to help any school or college or other offices.

I note some points for Principals and the faculty:

A professor who doesn’t read at least one new book a week is to be mourned by other colleagues and the Principal as intellectually and spiritually dead. A professor who doesn’t read or doesn’t think anything new or contribute to economy or growth of mind and knowledge corpus on daily basis betrays his soul or spirit and as such deserves ‘public hanging’ or at least shaming. Most professors profess only their egos or disdain of people around them or hellish isolation from larger rhythms of community – you don’t find them interested in affairs of locality or the underprivileged or larger issues of community or their own fraternity. How many professors/lecturers or teachers you know who don’t gossips away at least two hours a day or don’t read a word - scrolling phones is distraction – or meditate for at least ten minutes or cultivate the gift of attention towards the books/colleagues? A teacher who doesn’t maintain a smiling disposition or fails to crack a joke on routine basis needs psychological counseling. How many teachers can even name ten books on general subjects such as philosophy or poetry or art that constitute staple diet of mentally agile people? How many book reading sessions are routinely organized for children? Hundreds if not thousands of books haven’t been opened even once by anyone in college libraries. Why keep librarians or why not get good beds for them to sleep during day?

Myopic, judgmental, doctrinaire, closed minds, temperamentally morose, lost in trivial pursuits or fooled by distractions, intellectually dead, spiritually malnourished, most teachers live pathological or uninspiring lives. They have been forced by habit or hunger pangs to choose a career they don’t cherish or fall in love with. They deserve burial without ritual prayers or perhaps our sympathy for being caught in wrong profession.

Are you or your faculty, members of any credit cooperative or do your economics/commerce teachers tie up students in credit cooperatives to help them get easy finance or invest in local industry? Have you ever contemplated carrying out a survey of conditions or problems of enrolled students in their families as that would show why they are unable to attend in colleges regularly or perform optimally? What has been your strategy to help students avoid drug abuse and the problem of de-motivation as uselessness of academics stares in their face? How many students are able to earn while they learn through silent partnerships with local entrepreneurs? What has been your strategy to counsel students and use services of well being coaches or happiness coaches? How many colleges are able to attract even 80 percent students to attend classes? How does your salary get justified if the very purpose of helping students is defeated as huge number of students don’t come and you don’t have answer to their basic question why attend if it is more remunerative to do some private job or assist family at home? It is rare to find anyone in staff room with a book. The faculty speaking is mostly illiterate on pressing issue of financial management as they keep money either in banks to be eaten away by inflation, hardly ever calculate zakat the way they calculate income tax and thus their whole wealth is polluted, park money in GPF accounts failing to invest it in number of projects of family development or create savings for local industries that give reasonably assured returns, don’t choose voluntary retirement as savings at the time of retirement would have been able to be available for investment and returns from the same more than compensate for the loss of wages due to pension while earning freedom to do whatever one wishes, which could be spiritually fulfilling, and add income as well? People invest more in speculative markets than in industries crying for support under their very nose. Many choose to destroy their community’s wealth by locking it up in gold or land or big houses or new vehicles or obscenely costly marriages. How many lady teachers have requisite number of clothes only? I wish to salute them. At least two hours are wasted in checking trivial news updates by over 90 percent teachers. Talk to 80 percent teachers about great moral and spiritual or even economic issues and they don’t seem to be interested. Nothing great interests them. They are gone cases. Let us weep for them.

Demotivated, indifferent, planning for nothing, gossiping about everything that hardly concerns them, uninspiring, alienating for students, teachers hardly ask the question why teach what they teach if it helps less than 5 percent of students and is not connected to life or local industrial needs. Why should one be paid a fat salary for teaching such things as Chemistry or Botany at graduate level if for 95 percent students – who find no linkage to industry or economy or personal growth or intellectual stimulation – this will add nothing substantial? We need applied sciences for the majority and research in pure sciences by the few who cherish it, not teaching a content that fetches hardly anything for a general student here or hereafter. Can’t we design a degree that allows or encourages only five percent to choose courses that truly matter or interest them whole, giving other options to 95 percent? Our educational institutions that fail to implement vocational aspect of curriculum can be compared to farms that destroy 95 percent of their produce. The students don’t learn what they need and they learn what alienates them from knowledge culture or love of learning.

Coming specifically to role of economics and commerce departments, some general observations:

Why don’t we find proper land use plan in place in any college? Isn’t the case that kanals and kanals of land lie unused or sub optimally used for any productive, aesthetic or even educational purpose – for entrepreneurship space for students? Almost every second college can produce crores not mere lacs of revenue and many examples of entrepreneurship models by proper utilization of space in their colleges. After graduating students are unable to get gainful employment and haven’t been taught the virtue of savings and silent partnership in number of local industries. There is no counseling cell that would help students design degree in a more creative way that would fetch them both regular income and spiritual fulfillment. Almost half of the students are indifferent to idea of college or university. Many are vulnerable to psychological problems and drug abuse. Why is it that faculty is, generally speaking, financially illiterate as evidenced by their investment choices? We find failure to understand financial wisdom of pre-booking routine use items or agri-livestock products that become available at 10 to 20 percent discount (Cooperative stores can be carved in for every school or college and all enjoy discount and no buying hassle and create a job in the process) or even more for some products from co-owned farms. Every school or college with over 20 staff can create a job for one who makes available these at discounted prices.

Around 90 percent teachers display some evidence of indifference or lack of passion for academics or research or such things as culture of avid book reading or reaching the stage of fana fil ilm or unconditional love of learning. Shockingly they don’t get excited even about discounted goods or healthy products or creating jobs or spreading happiness in their own families. Let every school or college designate one person to pilot these interventions and within Ramadhan only they would make a difference and earn prayers of whole community, not just the poor or needy ones. Let them today calculate zakat (www.zistjk.org, www.ccljk.org) or convince other colleagues to choose to donate sadaqah to one person only or pre-book your mutton requirements or pay farmers or shopkeepers at the beginning and not the end of month, get membership of credit cooperative or write wasiya for any part of 1/3^rd of property or subscribe to cooperative store or become member of FPO and see the difference in a week it makes to themselves, their neighbours and relatives and the world.