Daily Times

We talked about medical doctors last week. Those who after having been assigned to state-run hospitals embark upon private practice while exploiting the nomenclature that comes with a posting at say, Lahore’s famous Lady Wellington or Services Hospital. Money is aplenty at the evening gigs while working at Lady Wellington or Services in the morning hours is a necessary evil they must perform. Since the dime comes later in the day, boredom and indifference reign supreme in the wards at the sarkari (state-run) hospital. But MDs aren’t alone here. I feel obliged to discuss some members of another profession who have regrettably taken up the same ways in recent years — teachers.

It is reprehensible in medical practitioners to advertise their sarkari postings on signboard at their private clinics — like when it says ‘Assistant Professor of Anatomy at X Sarkari Hospital’ or ‘Professor of Surgery at Y Sarkari Hospital’, when they treat patients at these hospitals with wanton indifference. It is equally condemnable on the part of teachers to exploit the names of sarkari colleges/universities while advertising their private tuition centres in the evening when they prefer not to meet their classes at the sarkari institutes they hail from. This is also a form of betrayal.

Now it would be way too bland in this day and age to quote hackneyed phrases bandying the ‘high moral ground’ that teachers must occupy, but meeting your class, finishing the prescribed course, conducting tests and other sundry tasks is the least a responsible government servant ought to do. What makes some government teachers do such things?

The money is a factor. And speaking candidly, it isn’t good. If your sarkari remuneration is all you live on, it’s pretty hard to make ends meet. Unlike other government services, there are no perks and privileges that come with being a sarkari teacher. Civil servants and members of the armed forces make the same amount of money every month, but they also get benefits of an official residence, vehicle, chauffeur, fuel, orderly, cook, et al, as they advance in their careers. Teachers only advance in age. From hearsay, I’ve learned that government has stopped allotting GOR houses to teachers now, the only thing they did get from the sarkari kitty of perks. Now, it’s only for bureaucrats. So it’s not much of a sought-after career unless you’re really into it. And why would people worth their salt be in a profession that has never been incentivised?

The general view is those who end up teaching at government institutes could not clear the civil services examination, and teaching was their fallback option. That is true but it is not in all cases. So when someone who wanted a career in bureaucracy for all the perks — and let’s be honest for a minute and admit that’s all there is to it — didn’t get their dream job and had to make good with delivering lectures, they don’t really feel the burden of a ‘great’ responsibility on their shoulders. Such ladies and gents (the men seem to enjoy a majority here) would rather make that extra dime necessary for happiness in a consumerist age. Hence, the proliferating private tuition centres that instruct you in the art, nay science, quackery, in fact, of committing entire textbooks to memory and reproducing the obsolete content in the atrocity called the annual examinations conducted by the boards of intermediate and secondary education throughout the country.

Some of the teachers running these private facilities have made good money. They live in posh localities, drive luxury cars and are probably content with their lives. The centres they run are famous. Students flock to them. Everyone is hunky dory. But roll back the tape a bit. Many of the teachers lording over these private academies, as they are popularly called, and those that they hire to keep the wheel rolling were appointed to sarkari institutes in the beginning. That’s where they started their jobs and learned the ropes. With time, they became experts in this or that subject. And then it all began. A suitable building was rented for setting up a tuition centre. Students started trickling in. Soon the numbers swelled. The building was purchased. Then another and another. The academy now has branches all over the city, and the ‘professor’ finds no need to meet the class at the state-run institute he meagerly started from. Bottom line: they were able to set up these academies because they got credibility as teachers from state-run institutes.

So does it all boil down to money? Sometimes it does. Everyone has the right to make good money and be able to afford a decent living. Would these teachers act differently were they offered the same perks government servants at administrative posts enjoy? It is worth a try. But here’s a one-liner. There isn’t much wrong with running a tuition centre or private medical clinic in the evening if the ladies and gentlemen who run these facilities work just as hard at the sarkari facilities they owe their fame and success to. Medicine and education are, at the cost of sounding clichéd, noble professions. Shouldn’t we act a bit more nobly too?

The writer is a lecturer in English Literature at Government College University, Lahore. He can be reached at sameeropinion@gmail.com