TAMIL NADU-School Teachers Plight

TAMIL NADU School Teachers' Plight A LOT of sophisticated noises have been made in recent years about the 'traditional' versus 'modern' approaches to education. The new Vice-Chancellor of Madras University often holds forth on education : education is not a ramming in of knowledge into empty vessels but a process of drawing out the students to experience and understand; it is not a handing out of Truth but a method of letting the students seek Truth out for themselves, etc. Some of Paulo Freire's ideas on education are also doing the rounds in Madras. Yet, beyond the jargon, the chasm between the much-flaunted radical aims and the abysmal conditions in which the majority of teachers live, learn and teach, is breathtaking.