Students vs Teachers?

Nowadays, 'Teacher Assessment' has become a common phenomenon in schools across India. In this notion, students are required to assess their teachers at the end of the year. While it is true that students' voices are a vital part of the endeavour to provide the best possible education to upcoming generations, the feedback given by children should not ideally determine the hiring and firing of teachers. According to some students, assessments should be encouraged but must not be given absolute power. Feedback from students can help to improve and refine a teacher's way of teaching. For example; if a majority of students cannot understand a particular topic, the teacher should allocate more time, and place more emphasis on it in the classroom. However, this feedback should not be used to fire any teacher. Students that receive comparatively lower marks may not be studying at home, and blaming their teacher for a student's bad performance is arguably wrong. Feedback must be used by teachers to improve the efficiency of their teaching, and to help them create techniques that will enable students to learn faster. Another view on this issue highlights the fact that teachers have been educated upon how to teach students and thus, do not require students' feedback at all. Students have no training, and therefore their assessments would be inaccurate. Pertinently, some feel that collecting feedback from students may undermine the authority of the teacher. In example, a teacher having a degree in teaching would know the various techniques well, and do not require feedback from students. However, a teacher must learn how to take feedback from students in a more positive way - even though students don't have training, they may sometimes know what is best for them and can tell teachers about loopholes in their ways of teaching so that they can improve for the better.

It is hence important for teachers to use their training practically and use feedback for improvement. Some believe that students must have a say in the decision-making policies of the classroom as their parents pay the tuition fees. Supporters of Teacher Assessment feel that the customer must have the maximum authority in this transactionary exchange, and hence, students should have a significant influence over how the 'business' of a school is run. However, it is wrong to compare a school to a business and students as customers. The feedback given by these teenagers might also be biased due to certain unfortunate tendencies of students and thus, must not determine the employment status of the teacher. The performance of teachers must therefore, be determined by time solely. In conclusion, I feel that students' feedback must be considered, but students must not be bestowed with all the decision making powers in a school. Feedback of students should only be used to refine the teaching methods in the school, and cannot determine the employment status of the school's teachers. Assessing and filtering through student's feedback should also therefore, also be a vital part of the endeavour to provide the best possible education to our young minds.

---

Written by Garv Mohan Sood

Edited by Nandini Nalam