Indian teachers among least paid in the world. (File Photo)India ranks eighth in the world in terms of respecting its teachers, however, when it comes to salary, they are among the least paying nations. According to the Global Teacher Status Index (GTSI) 2018 by the Varkey foundation, in its debutant entry in the global index, India is ranked much below the developing neighbour Malaysia and much smaller countries such as Portugal, Chile, Czech, Hungary, Columbia among others.
The actual wage that teachers get in India is “much less than the wage considered fair for the job.” While India ranks 26th out of the 35 countries ranked in terms of pay for its teachers, the top paying countries are Switzerland, Germany, USA, Canda and Taiwan.
India not only pays its teachers less but also expects a pay cut if their “job” is not done well. According to the GTSI, over 60 per cent of Indians think that teacher should ‘be paid according to the record of their pupil’. Implying if the outcome of the class is high, teachers should be paid more and if the number of students performing well is low, the teacher should be paid lesser.
While most of the countries, according to the data shared in the GTSI, have an opinion of making teaching an outcome-based profession, the number of people who agree with this has decreased over the year. For instance, in the UK, 74 per cent people wanted to have such a paying system in the previous GTSI conducted in 2013 but the number has gone down to nearly 34 per cent this year. A similar trend was seen in other countries including Finland.
Ironically, close to 80 per cent Indians also said that they would encourage their children to become a teacher. India ranks fourth on the list of parents encouraging their children to become a teacher, following Malasia, China and Korea.
Read | 54% Indian parents want their children to be teachers
The index reveals, for the very first time, that there is a direct link between teacher status and pupil performance as measured by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores.
