I thought the way people used to look down at elementary education had long changed and that was being taken care of by people fully aware of the need to assign the best and most qualified teachers to elementary schools. Elementary education is the cornerstone for the entire education system. If it is successful, the other stages will succeed; if it fails the entire system fails.
I was disappointed to know that the various education departments are still not taking this level of education seriously, seeing it as exile for those who challenge the rules or breach the trust reposed in them. This was exactly what happened to a number of teachers from the Hail province who were investigated and found guilty of fixing the examination results. The punishment they received was demotion and being sent to teach at elementary schools.
This attitude to elementary education must change. It is unacceptable that teachers who failed in the intermediate and secondary schools are dumped into elementary education levels. Assigning these teachers to elementary schools is to court more disastrous results.
Teachers at this level have to show more ability and creativity to be able to deal with elementary schoolchildren, not less. It is a complex area and involves more than teaching a subject that those in the higher reaches of education could not. We are dealing here with a comprehensive process which calls for bringing up a whole generation of youngsters by applying psychology and pedagogic skills.
How can someone who was caught cheating and who betrayed the trust reposed in them realize the importance of all these factors? Sending such individuals to teach at elementary schools is no solution.
Better still if they are banned from teaching altogether and relegated to administrative jobs from where they can be shown the door if they failed in this too.
<31 July 2002>
