Viewpoint : Educational Institute with a Difference?

Educational Institute with a Difference?   By Rooma Mehra *

I have known for sometime now that public school education in the capital of this country no longer constitutes the value-oriented pearls of wisdom that used to be imparted in our days. However, what one had learnt and absorbed through second-hand experiences, came as a bolt of lightening would, when one had the opportunity to look beneath the tip of the iceberg visible to one. The lightening revealed unseemly cracks and loopholes in the educational-iceberg.
 
I joined last year one of the city’s most reputed school’s international branch as German teacher and Head of Modern Foreign Languages Department.
 
Before being called for the interview I received a call from the school asking me - since I had mentioned fluent German, French and elementary Spanish in my CV - if I would be able to teach Spanish. My answer was a definite “No, absolutely not.” There was no question at all of being able to do justice to the teaching of a language when one’s own knowledge of it was only elementary. Only if one was master of a language could one dare to impart knowledge of it to young, receptive minds. I felt the question was preposterous, to say the least.
 
I was asked to join on the day of the interview itself. The Principal asked me again, with a wide smile, if I could help the students with their Spanish till they had found a Spanish teacher. The word “help the students” made me relent and I agreed to do my best, thinking that the school would certainly find someone in another day or two. The succeeding weeks saw me taking classes I to X in Spanish language alone (after painstakingly studying Spanish during the night). 
 

Finally, one day, I had the time to breathe and pause..and take stock of this unexpected situation and react to it. I met the Principal and asked if they had found a Spanish teacher since there seemed to be no sign of one on the horizon. ”Why don’t you find us someone, Rooma?” was her counter-question. She was not even looking for one, I thought wonderingly..
 
Was she being fair to students whose parents were dishing out exorbitant sums of money in lieu of tuition fees for their wards by subjecting them to half-baked teaching, and secondly, did she feel she was right in having more half-baked teaching for the German language students, while I struggled with Spanish and had proven credentials as a German language teacher?
 
I reminded the Principal that I had applied for the post of German language teacher and not Spanish language teacher..and I had categorically stated that whereas I was capable of teaching both German and French should the school require, I had only an elementary knowledge of Spanish language.
 
I was immediately asked if I could guarantee 1st class results for the IGCSE students of German language, whose examinations loomed just round the corner. Already aware of the exceedingly halting level of fluency of the existing German teacher, I said I could only promise something after gauging the students’ present knowledge of the language.
 
Next day, I was handed a timetable comprising only Spanish teaching with German teaching confined to the weekend only!
 
I heaved an incredulous sigh and was back at the Principal’s office.
 
For the umpteenth I reiterated that I had applied for the job of a German language teacher and could not be expected to teach Spanish full-time and German part-time only.
 
Secondly, I had no weekends to spare since my mother needed me at home on those days. I had responsibilities towards her.
 
The lady suddenly burst into unexpected venom. She had some viciously strong words against parents who had the temerity to depend on their working children instead of on servants. “You should choose between your mother and your job!”
 
I was shocked into silence for one full minute before I could gather my wits about me and be composed enough to ask her if she had parents and whether her attitude towards them was the same. And how could a school educate its children if its Principal had no values to speak of?
 
I visited the Principal again on Monday, after spending one weekend gauging the standard of education of the German language students. They did not even have their basics right and they were expected to glide through their IGCSE papers in less than a month’s time.
 
Additionally, I had no wish to teach Spanish - a subject that I myself was not a master of. I owed my students and their parents that much at least.
 
But above all, it pained me beyond measure to see an educational institute of this repute, compromising to such an extent on the most important of values, and that in the name of commerce.
 
I submitted my resignation.
 
It was immediately refused.
 
As blackmail, I was harassed for days together over the return of my original certificates, the lack of which impeded any effort to look for alternative employment. These had been locked up upon appointment to the school, in the name of verification • and never returned. I remembered also, with a sinking heart, that I had naively signed a five-year bond with the school, thinking what could possibly go wrong in a school of this standing.
 
On an umpteenth visit, I was finally given a long list of departments, whose heads would sign their ok to my leaving after which I would get my original certificates and my dues.
 
Assuming that this procedure was necessarily undertaken in order for me to recover my dues, I spent the next grueling four hours going up and down elevators, stairs, from one building to another in the sprawling, multi-storeyed school complex.
 
What brought a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye was the joy in the eyes of all the innocent students I had been teaching, who were thrilled at the prospect of having their teacher back with them. The older ones had earlier complained to me about the abnormally frequent change of their teachers, which disturbed them immensely. I had not the heart to tell them that I was not able to come back to them and be a party to their exploitation at the hands of their alma-mater.
 
The list was finally signed and handed over to the Principal’s secretary, who with a slow movement of the hand ending with an unexpected flourish handed me my original certificates, which I accepted with a composure that had come with great difficulty. She added that I was now free to go.. I pointed out that I had still not received my dues. Whereupon the lady looked at me incredulously • up and down and then up again • and asked me if I realized how lucky I was to have my certificates back, and proceeded to ask in a tone that must have greeted Oliver Twist when he had asked for “more” in Fagin’s “orphanage” ..
 
“Dues?” Shaking her head in disbelief she repeated, “You want your dues??” (“More? You want more food?” Fagin asked incredulously of a trembling Oliver Twist.)
 
“I will have you know, Ma’am, that you will shortly be receiving a letter asking you to pay a considerable amount of money to the school. And why on earth would I be paying an amount to the school, I asked. Because I had signed a contract for five years with the school, and I was already leaving.. The picture was suddenly clear to me. I stopped myself from losing my temper• as glancing to my left on intuition, I saw three students approach the desk - just in time..

* Rooma Mehra is a renowned Sculpture Artist, painter and Writer based in New Delhi.