Prem Khatry

An honest teacher is like a sincere, dutiful and hardworking daughter-in-law in a traditional, rural, conservative social and cultural setting. Despite 1000s of changes in all aspects of Nepali life, the young lady remains where tradition left her. On the top, there are regions and cultures where a poor daughter-in-law gives her life, or one can say, hungry and greedy folks take her tender life as if she is an object one can do away with like the way slaves were treated in the early times.
Despite spending long, quality hours with the children also the teachers' job is not done nor is it well counted. While at school or outside, s/he has to think about the well-being of the child, the most affectionate charge of the parents, the family and a long chain of relations. How can s/he change the young clay-like child into a fully responsible human? It is a tough work but the teacher has been doing this from the earliest time of history – in our case, say from the glorious Gurukul times – till today. Has the teacher been bored? Has she been away from the charge’s physical and mental proximity? Not at all. Without her meticulous effort to turn the small one into a full personality, the little one wouldn’t face the multiple roles s/he has to face in life.

Responsibility
Where does the teacher stand today? Who is there to appreciate her role in society? Is she alone traveling to the school, taking up her responsibility and coming home alone, too? What happens to the quality required for her own development and raised status? This is a vital question facing quality teaching at our school, college, university and such other institutions imparting knowledge to the seekers. The bottom-line of a teacher's career is quality teaching and it comes through persistent effort to excel as a friend and facilitator in a learning environment.
An effective teaching skill is what a teacher would require to improve her skill over time in the changing context. At present, changes are fast and the classroom must also change accordingly. A teacher is not just a giver, she is also a taker and 'take' she must from a variety of resources. Council for Teacher Foundation - CTEF – is all about the teachers – about their well-being, their skill, responsibilities, roles and relationships with divergent and wider sectors of society. Yet, like the work of a dutiful, sincere and hardworking daughter-n-law, the teacher's work is taken for granted as part of her household chores.
Organised in 1986 CTEF aims at: a) connecting teachers across states, nations and regions in the spirit of solidarity for progress in their teaching and leadership quality, b) upgrading their research skills using general to advanced technology, and with these two main focuses, c) preparing for the changing pattern of teaching in the future education. In all, imparting knowledge is what teachers do and will be doing in the times ahead.
The conference venue – Glacier International College, Shantinagar at Baneshwar was in a mood of celebration of the festival like conference. Diwas Shakya, principal of the college and organiser of the first day symposium on the theme, welcomed the delegates from different colleges and schools of Nepal and Assam, Jaipur, Punjab, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi. The presence of female scholars was noteworthy giving inspiration to their Nepalese counterparts.
Inaugurating the Indo-Nepal three-day CTEF conference in Kathmandu, National Planning Commission member Dr Usha Jha spoke on the changing pattern of education and urgent need to tie up education with development. In fact, the theme of the 3rd international conference was Education and Development. She highlighted the need to address social and cultural issues as well as focus on the development need of the nation.
International president of CTEF India Prof KM Bhandarkar shed light on the objective of the organisation founded by a noted educationist of India, Prof Gulab Chaurasia. Professor Nilima Bhagabati, the International Secretary-General based in Gauhati is actively engaged in promoting the cause of education through CTEF. She outlined the work the organisation is doing at present beyond the borders of India. It has reached the SAARC region and gone even beyond, she said. She also claimed Nepal chapter of the organisation is doing better that other off-India chapters.
Former Registrar of Kathmandu University Prof Bhadra Man Tuladhar and former Dean Prof Mana Wagle spoke on the need to have practical and development-oriented education policy for the development of the country. Students from Glacier, the host college performed several dances very well for the visiting guests as a token of honor and love. The audience appreciated the quality of the school and college level students in terms of co-curricular activities.

Message
Finally, CTEF is making all out efforts to reach schools, colleges and universities with the historic message that teachers need professional updates in their vocation. And only an organised institution can offer them proper guidance from time to time. At upper level education is complete when teachers engage themselves in research and publication. CTEF Nepal will organise such events and also plans to send group of teacher to Indian institutions, especially to Education faculties of different universities present in the conference.
(To be continued…)

(Former Dean of Humanities & Social Sciences, TU and Fulbright scholar from University of California, Khatry writes on cultural issues)