Teachers’ Day should be more than flowers and speeches. It is the moment to ask whether the classroom is still in safe hands, and to fix the parts of the system that let a few teachers fail the many.
Every year on 5 September, India honours its teachers on the birth anniversary of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Children bring flowers, schools hold functions and speeches praise the guru as the architect of the nation’s future. The sentiment is sincere. But sentiment alone will not protect the one thing Teachers’ Day is meant to celebrate: the promise that every child who walks into a classroom will find a teacher there, ready to teach.
That promise is quietly broken in too many places. Reports of proxy teachers, where a salaried teacher pays a relative or a poorly paid stand-in to take the class, are not merely a disciplinary matter. Public money is paid for a public service. When the service is subcontracted, the state is defrauded and the child is short-changed. Add to this the familiar complaints of late arrival, early departure, private tuition taking priority over school hours, and, in the worst cases, teachers arriving under the influence of drink or using tobacco on the campus. A child learns from what a teacher does far more than from what a teacher says.
It is important to be fair. These cases do not describe the profession. Lakhs of teachers across the country work in difficult conditions, often without proper buildings, resources or support, and still turn up every morning with patience and care. They deserve better pay, better training and public respect. The point is that they are let down, as much as pupils are, by colleagues who abuse the position and by a system that looks away.
The rules already exist. The Right to Education Act, state service conduct regulations, board affiliation norms and a string of Supreme Court rulings set out what schools and teachers owe the public. What is missing is even, prompt and transparent enforcement. Inspections are thin in remote districts. Complaints sit for months. Local influence and administrative indifference do the rest.
Technology can help. Biometric or face-based attendance, digital inspection records and online complaint portals make absence harder to hide. Several states have begun. But surveillance is not the goal, and rural schools without reliable power or internet need practical alternatives. The aim is regularity and openness, not suspicion.
Four things would make a real difference: a clear and uniform professional code of conduct; a transparent, technology-backed attendance and inspection system; independent and time-bound investigation of complaints, with natural justice for the accused; and genuine recognition and reward for teachers who excel.
Respect and accountability are not opposites. A doctor’s mistake harms one patient. A teacher’s neglect can dull a generation. The best tribute to Dr Radhakrishnan this Teachers’ Day is not another bouquet, but a system that honours good teachers and no longer shelters the rest.
