Are schools evaluating their Educators on the right metrics?

Prior to my MBA I worked in Education policy with the Indian Government for the state of Haryana for over 2 years in a statewide school transformation project called the MMSDY (Mukhya Mantri Shiksha Diksha Yojna). I worked deep in the rural parts of the state where we used to regularly go for government school visits to get a flavor of the issues plaguing the government school system as a whole.

So during my initial visits, I had a chance to walk into a Mathematics class for grade 8 in a rural government school. Children were copying advanced algebra formulas from the board. A few notebooks I picked up were neat and organized and to be honest very impressive. There was consistency in the notebook and I could see work being done right from the start of the year. I commended the teacher and congratulated him on the fact that he was what I might call as a shining beacon of hope for the Education system in our country.

I don’t know why but I ended up asking that child to quickly come up in front and solve a basic algebra question for me. That blank look on the childs' face was a defining moment for me. He not only failed to go beyond the first step but unable to solve for even the most basic of equations which were at 20% of the complexity relative to the one they were copying off the board. I then tried simple 5-digit addition. He failed again. I then gave the entire class this question but half of it got the answer wrong. At this moment, the gross incompetence plaguing our educational system hit me hard. The focus is on compliance rather than on real learning. The teacher was doing what was necessary for meeting the expectations of both the school administration and parents ie. a good clean, regularly filled notebook that is the best sign of progress aka a hard working teacher.

This jolted me into the realisation that as a social leader working in this sphere, I needed to target the spirit, and not just the letter, of education. I needed to ensure learning, not just attendance or teacher presence. This is something that I feel goes beyond education and into the realm both in the non-profit and for-profit space where the illusion of progress and on ground impact are unable to see eye to eye.