By Purabi Shridhar

National Teachers Award winner Sarita Manuja says teachers cannot exonerate themselves for debilitating their status.

Whether teaching is still a noble profession may be debatable in some quarters but Sarita Manuja would not exchange her job for anything. The Principal of DAV School, Sector 8C, Chandigarh, and winner of the National Teachers Award 2002 is convinced that, “Our children are what we, the parents and teachers make them. As teachers we’ve to earn their respect, we cannot just demand it.” Forty-eight-year-old Sarita is recipient of several awards including the National Institute of Economic Development award for ‘Excellence in Education and Management’.

Pay Attention
Listening to the inner voice of students is something that Sarita firmly believes in. It could be because though she would have liked to do medicine, the only child from a conservative family in Chandigarh had to opt for a science degree, as there was no medical college in the city then. Thankfully, after that she did her Masters in English from Punjab University, which was a turning point in her life. Having discovered a passion for languages, she decided to opt for teaching and followed it with a BEd degree.

Fortuitously, Sarita married K L Manuja, also in the field of education. Her first job was with Dagshai Public School, Shimla. After nine years of teaching, including a stint at the Sainik School in Himachal Pradesh, she was appointed the Principal of the DAV Public School, at distant Dhanbad in Bihar.

“It was very challenging. Being a trade union affected area, every parent was a ‘neta’ who banged on the table,” she recalls. Undeterred, she worked in close collaboration with the local managing committee and finally arrived at a ‘good understanding.’

Don’t Pressurise Kids
With over 26 years of experience, if there is one issue that worries Sarita, it is the growing pressure exerted on children by their parents. “The parents are ambitious and they want their unfulfilled ambitions realised through their kids. Today there are limited number of children and parents want to accomplish everything through them.”

Sarita also maintains that if there has been erosion in the respect base for teachers then they’ve to accept partial responsibility for it: “In the 35-40 minutes that I, as a teacher, have in a class, any child will be able to realise how serious I am and whether I treat them as thinking individuals or not.”

The present education system is something that Sarita would like revamped: “The system does not follow a logical system. There has to be synchronisation between the education authorities, schools and universities. Even if schools follow the grading system, will it be accepted at the time of admission to college? We’ve to do away problems at the root level.”

Sarita is trying to reduce educational stress, beginning with emphasis on technology in classrooms. As chairperson of ‘Koshish’ an education forum that is part of INTEL’s Teach to the Future project, plans are on for virtual classes by putting extra classes online. “We are trying to create research-oriented students and self-learners with spirit of enquiry and exploration.”