Should students be allowed to grade their teachers?

Overview

According to the Indian tradition of teaching, the teacher, known as the guru, takes the place of God. This esteem position was given owing to the knowledge and high mental status of the guru. Of course, a teacher also passes through the phase of a student before finally earning the name of a proficient teacher. Today the scenario has changed a lot regarding the role and status of a teacher. The latter not only has to upgrade his or her knowledge constantly, but also has to develop the attitude of respecting the students. He or she should be more a mentor rather than be a strict disciplinarian.

Students’ attitude towards teaching

The socio-moral responsibility of our country is dependent on the education of students as they are considered to be the true wealth of our nation. It is the duty and right of any individual to get educated at the right time and at the right place. Under this context, the question arises whether a system of grading teachers by the students should be introduced in schools to enhance teaching and learning environment.

Students’ rating of teachers

The school administration and the teachers will be able to know about the performance of the teachers if the system of students’ rating of teachers is implemented.  However, it should not be taken in the negative sense. Gaining knowledge at present has broadened to such an extent that it challenges even a good teacher to update himself/herself. Students will also get a good impression about their teachers, and find out if the topic taught by the teacher, is understood by them. Besides this, the student and teacher relationship builds up greatly and the atmosphere of the class becomes more favourable to learning. Under this scenario, the confidence and satisfaction level of a student in his or her teacher is boosted. Hence, this attitude of the student will encourage good teachers to make sustainable efforts to motivate themselves further on their endeavour to become an excellent teacher in the eyes of their student. However, it will expose those teachers who are not doing well and ultimately will drag them to correct their teaching methods.  This situation will certainly improve the quality of teaching and their approach towards students.  In all the fields of activity these days, grading to measure performance of a professional is very common. With this idea in mind,  why not a student evaluate the performance of his or her teacher and accordingly, grading is given by him. Students might encounter problem with the teacher’s attitude many a time, but they may not know how to approach and tackle it. Hence, this system will assist them to raise their voice by grading their teachers. This method may induce and bring positive changes in the schools.

Student’s maturity

A pertinent question that always arises in one’s mind is whether the student is sufficiently mature enough to grade his/her teachers. Students are considered to be young and inexperienced. It may not be possible for them to assess correctly whether a particular teacher is good for teaching or not. Hence, the parameters of grading done by them may be too low. Students may like or dislike their teachers for various reasons that may be attributed are noted below.

• The amount of homework given

• Easiness of tests conducted

• Leniency in marking tests

• Appearance of teacher

• Temperament

• Personality of the teacher

All the above qualities rated by the students give a favourite impression of the teacher. But, this attitude of the students is not believed to be good. It may pose a threatening problem to the teachers by forcing an attitudinal change in them to please the students. It may also make them focus more on gaining right grades from the students to retain their jobs, rather than teach them sincerely.

Misuse of power of grading

Students are not supposed to be administrators. Their immaturity might make them misuse the power of grading for their own personal interest. This might end up in not respecting their teachers. Such situations may create adverse effects in the staffroom among the teaching staff. On the other hand, students may also be punished for providing low grades to few teachers.  However, grading teachers by students can be done with certain alterations and conditions in the system or procedure. This grading is useful without any mistakes. They are noted below:

• Grading work should be entrusted to students who are aged more than 10 years since those below 10 may not understand the procedure meant for grading.

• Secondly, the student involved in the grading of his or her teacher will be asked to inform the reasons as to why he or she intends to give grades to the respective teachers.

• Thirdly, during the process of grading, it is essential for the student to include the parents also to be a part of it, to make the grading meaningful.

• This type of grading involving the parents’ wisdom will certainly make the system more useful.

• Parents’ involvement will make their children to assume more responsibility towards the whole process of grading.

Important parameters of grading

While students are allowed to grade their teachers, it is very vital for them to consider parameters of grading. This consists of factors like teacher’s behaviour, helping nature, using rude, polite or abusive language, temperament and the way the teacher keeps the class well disciplined. Other factors include teacher’s fair attitude to all students and not only to some students in particular, paying attention to the entire class, time management, and punctuality. Students can develop a detailed grading system by ensuring to include all pertinent points and make a report with problematic areas identified and bring to the notice of the concerned authority. The entire score of the grading system of the teachers by their student will not suffer owing to any mistakes. Under this scenario, it will be easy for the teachers to identify their mannerisms and rectify them through improvements in their methods of teaching. Besides this, the administration of the school should also see that the teachers are able to differentiate the correct feedback from the incorrect feedbacks of the student.  

Conclusion

Involvement of the school head, parents and the students are considered to be collectively responsible to grade the mannerisms of the teacher in a fair way. This process is a useful concept and will yield good results if it is developed and implemented with right conditions. The future of our country will depend upon how good the students are educated as they progress in the future. Hence, the system of allowing students to grade their teachers shall prove to be a boon to the institution, which aims to build and take care of the hopes of the students.