Amukta Mahapatra The life of a ‘normal’ teacher, though many paeans have been sung to her or him as to how critical s/he is to the school system, continues without too many changes for the past hundred years or more. Let us look at who this teacher is in the present times, where s/he works and what her/his working environment is like. Starting with numbers and quantities would give a context to the emerging image in the mind’s eye.chong qi cheng bao There are approximately five million (50 lakhs) teachers in India, and they are located as given in the table below. In the approximately 12 lakh schools (see Table 2 for the percentage of schools that are government, private and private aided), even if you leave out the privately managed schools that are aided by the government (which usually means that the teachers’ salaries are paid by the government), a large percentage of teachers are from the government sector. From the provisional figures for 2001-02, the number of primary teachers in the country is 1.928 million (19.2 lakhs) and those teaching in upper primary schools (Classes VI to VIII) is 1.468 million (14.6 lakhs), which is, roughly in the ratio of, 2: 1.5. For every two primary school teachers in India, there are 1.5 upper primary teachers. If you take a look at Graph 1, you will realise that despite all the progress that the country is making today, 5% (about 60,000) of the schools all over India are without a building, which also means that there are many teachers who go to a school which has no room at all, leave alone the other necessary infrastructure. Of the schools with buildings, not all are pucca and teachers have to work in all kinds of shelters (see Table 3). The percentage of schools without pucca buildings, adds up to about 30% in rural areas and 20% in urban areas. Of the schools that profess to have pucca buildings, whether government or private, except for a small percentage across the country, the rest in all likelihood do not have sufficient space for all the children, their books and bags, smooth floors, good ventilation, proper blackboards, possibilities for storage and display of materials that one expects in a normal primary classroom. The larger schools usually fare better. China which is more populated has chosen to set up bigger schools with better infrastructure in central villages making it possible for a majority of children to access these