With the introduction of GPS-based attendance a simple app-based attendance system the accountability of teachers in Government run schools has not come to a full circle as this app based attendance only tracks attendance and the teacher’s physical movements but not the entire teaching-learning process the core issue of quality education in Jammu & Kashmir like other parts of the country. Much better it would have been for the Government to introduce GPS-based attendance in private schools as wells for the purposes of making their teachers also equally accountable. What matters the most is the fact that tracking the attendance of teachers is not sufficient enough to establish a prompt system of accountability for Teachers in Government run schools as finally all depends on the teaching environment in Government run schools which necessitates improvement in the facility of teaching aids and infrastructural facilities for the students in Government run schools as are available private schools since for about last two decades. While GPS based attendance of teachers means information about just physical presence of teachers in schools just one part of the teaching learning process , no technological intervention has been put in place yet for improving the teaching learning process which is the cause of poor performance of Government run schools in examinations of higher classes conducted by J&K Board Of School Education (J&K BOSE) and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) . Never forget that only last week a video showing students sitting on a mat in a Government run schools in Kathua district of Jammu province with the demand for benches and tables went viral on social media sites . In the 21st century Government run schools lacking the facility of benches and tables for the students speaks volumes about the low concern the School Education Department attaches to the availability of adequate infrastructural facilities in Government run schools.
“Students if provided the facility to identify the topics left incomplete by the teachers is a better way of inducing accountability in the teaching –learning process and such a feedback can be simultaneously made mandatory for private schools as well for furthering the bigger cause of the satisfaction of students regarding completion of their prescribed syllabus. The inequalities once traced in teaching learning process won’t be not only sufficient enough for tracking the completion of syllabus chapter wise but it will also simultaneously track the conduct of teachers in Government run schools which is very crucial for establishing conducive atmosphere for quality teaching in schools”.
Students getting the facility to rate the performance of teachers won’t by any standards of understandabilities improve the accountability of teachers in Government run schools but the role of students will change from learners to critics of their own teachers. Instead students if provided the facility to identify the topics left incomplete by the teachers is a better way of inducing accountability in the teaching –learning process and such a feedback can be simultaneously made mandatory for private schools as well for furthering the bigger cause of the satisfaction of students regarding completion of their prescribed syllabus. The inequalities once traced in teaching learning process won’t be not only sufficient enough for tracking the completion of syllabus chapter wise but it will also simultaneously track the conduct of teachers in Government run schools which is very crucial for establishing conducive atmosphere for quality teaching in schools.
