Teaching as a Profession

The choice of profession is a difficult thing. The wrong choice of profession is at the root of much sorrow and suffering in after-life. The profession one decides to follow must be suited to one’s taste and capacity. In great and progressive countries, even young boy and girls find an opportunity to develop his or her inherent abilities by suitable education and the profession he or she takes to, is attended with success. But the thing is quite different in our country. It has no reference to the talents and  abilities of a student. A profession is a thing of mere chance. A student who has the taste of a doctor, will become a teacher, whereas a man with talents in engineering will, for want of opportunities, becomes a clerk at an office.

No doubt the teacher’s place is at the centre of every system of education. To him/her is entrusted the sacred duty of training the mind of young boys and girls as well as moulding their character. Thus on him/her rests the responsibility of building up the personality of the future citizens. Nobody who has not a temperamental love and liking for the teaching profession should take to it. Teaching is a difficult art and a teacher should consider himself sufficiently rewarded when his pupils have successfully completed. Dr. Radhakrishnan and Dr. Thomas Arnold became idols of their students by their dedicated service and deep scholarship.

Unfortunately the teaching profession is fast losing its lure. It is desirable that those who regard teaching as a mission should come to this profession. In the early part of 20th Century eminent men like Sir. Surendra Nath Banerjee, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, Pandit Madan Mohan Malavya, and the like took this profession. It is due to the tireless efforts of the old breed of teachers that we had great men in different spheres of our public activity. It is a sad state of things that whereas the old-breed of teachers are dying out, suitable ones are not coming up to step into their shoes. Only the rejects of other lucrative jobs are overcrowding the noblest of professions, that is, the teaching profession. They come to this line only to make a living or to use it as a waiting room for a better berth.

For a long time there has taken place a gradual erosion of the prestige and social standing which used to be associated with the very noble as well as old profession of teaching. In the matrimonial column of Newspapers appears daily the following advertisement.

Wanted for an accomplished graduate girl, a doctor or an engineer or an A class officer or an affluent businessman. A college teacher will do if he is well-placed and financially sound.

It clearly reveals the social depreciation suffered by the teachers. Moreover, in these day of Mammon Worship, accumulating power and wealth and honouring a man according to his bank balance, the teaching profession has lost it’s formal glory.