Education accountability: Dump classroom cameras and trust teachers

Let’s be clear. This is not about cameras in school corridors or driveways installed for safety. This is about cameras specifically placed to monitor teachers, turning classrooms into a  panopticon. Such surveillance is not just highly intrusive and disruptive to the functioning of the class; it signifies a deep and underlying mistrust in the teacher and the classroom as a community, and a profound misunderstanding of education and human nature. 

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Streaming video feeds from classrooms and other such approaches are knee-jerk responses; over-simplistic centralized ‘solutions’ to the complex challenge of building accountability in our vast education system. That word ‘accountability’ itself is fraught with oversimplification, carried over from its overuse in simpler, often mechanistic or unidimensional environments such as businesses. In endeavours such as teaching, the notion of deep responsibility is far more real.  In other words, it is ‘internal accountability,’ which involves holding yourself accountable to a professional ethic and purpose. 

This notion is not at odds with teachers being significantly responsible for the learning of our children; just that it adequately acknowledges that such learning is also significantly influenced by a complex interplay of other factors such as socioeconomic conditions, societal expectations, public investment, the system’s culture and more. 

If we are serious about building a reasonably effective accountability system in school education, how should we proceed? The starting point is the recognition that we must try to build an internal accountability system, not a mechanistic one that will not enable good education. We must also account for the fact that people have a range of characteristics and even wider range of behaviours. For the rest of this piece, we will use the ‘internal accountability’ meaning of the word.

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First, let’s get one basic thing out of the way. We need quick and decisive management of consequences for  specific wilful transgressions and bad behaviour. Meting out corporal punishment to students, unauthorized absenteeism, goofing off, coming to school inebriated, discriminating against castes and the like must be dealt with swiftly. 

The intent of this narrow stream of action is not to control but to weed out unacceptable behaviour. Unfortunately, we are bad at doing this, and we must improve—these are table stakes. Egregious behaviour left unconfronted corrodes any system and its culture. 

Second, let us consider our scale.  Our school system has over 10 million teachers and more than 1.4 million schools. The foundational principle for managing such a colossal system is that it cannot be centralized at any level—neither the state nor district level. Any effective oversight mechanism for accountability must be as close to the school as possible, ideally at the block, panchayat and ward levels.

This requires two counterbalancing subsystems. One is within the official departments of education, disaggregated and empowered at the panchayat and ward level. The other, just as crucial, is a governance system that embeds each school within its local community. It is this local community ownership—with its inherent interest in the school’s effectiveness—that can provide the sustained engagement needed to support the right actions and ensure accountability. It is impossible for any distant administration to replicate this deep, contextual and everyday oversight.

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Third, we must begin with a fundamental approach of trust. The enterprise of education demands a unique combination of technical expertise, human sensibilities and operational capacities. It cannot be reduced to a set of standardized procedures. If you trust teachers, more often than not, they will rise to meet that trust. If you approach them with mistrust, you will inevitably erode their morale and agency. 

Note that the very nature of teaching—being responsible for children and their future—instils in most teachers a deep sense of purpose and responsibility. This inherent feeling of responsibility is our greatest asset, which we must harness and not destroy with suspicion. Systematically building the professional identity of a teacher as a practitioner of the most complex of human crafts and its purpose of helping create a good society is the most effective route to an effective accountability system. 

Without doubt, we need a functional accountability system in education. But we will get there if we build everything on the realization that at its core, education is a social-human endeavour. It thrives on connection, trust and a shared sense of purpose. A camera in the classroom does not just watch; it silently undermines the foundation upon which true education is built. We must choose to build that foundation up, not surveil its erosion from afar.

The author is CEO of Azim Premji Foundation.