Teaching has always been regarded as a noble, divine, and prophetic profession. Across all religions and civilizations, the teacher occupies the most sacred position—guiding humanity towards truthfulness, kindness, humility, justice, and the courage to resist oppression, inequality, and deceit.

In Hinduism, the Guru is revered as an Avtaar of God; in Buddhism, the Buddha (teacher) is one who shows the truth; and in Islam, the Prophet (PBUH) himself is the supreme teacher of mankind. Truly, teachers are the builders of nations. As the Kothari Commission rightly said, “The destiny of India is being shaped in her classrooms.” The Qur’an itself began with a command that sanctified knowledge: “Read in the name of your Lord who created.” (96:1). Angel Jibreel (AS) taught the Prophet (PBUH), who in turn guided his Companions—just as prophets, saints, and sages across traditions taught their followers the values of compassion, reason, and wisdom. Hazrat Ali (RA) beautifully emphasized this dignity when he said, “He who has taught me a single word has made me his servant.”
Throughout history, teachers were honored with gifts, lands, and deep respect. Kings and princes bowed before them, acknowledging their moral superiority. Aristotle and his illustrious student, Alexander the Great (Sikander), once stood by a river during their travels. Aristotle insisted on crossing first, but Alexander refused, saying: “If I survive, I remain but one Alexander. If you survive, you can create thousands of Alexanders like me.” Similarly, the Abbasid Caliph Haroon al-Rashid’s sons would respectfully place their teacher’s shoes in their proper place, considering it a great honour. Such reverence should inspire us today.
Sadly, these lofty ideals remain distant from the realities of Kashmir’s higher education system. On Teacher’s Day, social media often floods with glorifying posts, yet in practice, dignity is systematically denied. In my five years of teaching in the Higher Education Department and IGNOU, I have seen how hierarchy, favoritism, and exclusion corrode the very spirit of learning.
Contractual lecturers—who shoulder the maximum workload—are treated as “stopgaps,” tolerated but rarely respected. Many are excluded from seminars, sidelined in evaluations, or even denied access to libraries. Some principals sometimes instruct permanent staff to avoid them altogether, as though academia were private property, not public trust. Attendance registers gather dust, internal marks are distributed through favouritism, and exams often turn into spectacles of partiality.
Every year, the Higher Education Department (HED) J&K appoints around 2,500 Academic Arrangement (AA) Lecturers across colleges. If these many posts are filled annually on a temporary basis, why is there no fast-track mechanism to permanently recruit faculty? Allowing PhD holders who have also cleared NET to fill these posts would not compromise education quality; on the contrary, it would strengthen both teaching standards and institutional stability.
Truly, it is a shame: contract-based lecturers in Kashmir are treated as second-class professionals. Despite handling the maximum workload, their contributions are barely acknowledged. Some permanent staff see them not as colleagues but as temporary fillers —useful only for covering classes. This constant undermining creates a culture of insecurity where quality teaching suffers.
The pain of these realities is best reflected in the voices of those at the receiving end.
One Academic Arrangement (AA) Lecturer shared:
“When I was teaching in Bemina and Sopore, I would often learn about college seminars only through my students. Some even told me, ‘Sir, perhaps you are not allowed to attend.’ I felt ashamed hearing this.”
Another AA-Lecturer recounted:
“Some principals direct permanent staff not to visit contractual staff rooms or maintain friendly interaction with us. Many permanent teachers treat their academic position as a personal privilege rather than a public trust.”
A third Lecturer, from Baramulla added:
“Discriminatory behaviour often manifests in humiliating ways: AA lecturers being taunted before students, asked to maintain registers on behalf of permanent staff, or denied access to the library and forced to stay idle in the department after delivering classes. Attendance is rarely taken seriously, with many teachers hardly maintaining records-yet grading students arbitrarily. During exams, favouritism becomes glaring when some teachers casually converse with their ‘special’ students inside exam halls or openly demand leniency for their relatives in internal exams. These practices do not merely erode academic ethics; they poison the very soul of education.”
These testimonies expose how deeply exclusionary attitudes and unethical practices are embedded within the system. How can those regarded as the head and intellect of society—meant to guide and heal—end up derailing and demoralizing it? What a shame!
Yet, to be fair, there are also inspiring examples of faculty and principals—like Prof. Mohammad Ismail, Prof. Mohammad Farooq Rather, and Prof. Mohammad Shafi Lone—who are remembered with respect for their ethical, humble, and supportive nature. But the system fails them too.
This culture of hierarchy and favouritism has inevitably trickled down to the student body. Increasingly, students prefer to skip classes, finding little motivation in a system where attendance is poorly monitored and marks are randomly allocated without uniform rules, where it takes months to recruit contractual faculty again and again, year after year. Many prefer leisure over learning—spending time in parks making reels rather than attending classrooms. Some also indulge in unhealthy gender mixing without academic purpose leading to immodesty and even tempting or damaging the careers of modest and brilliant students. Such indifference, however, is not just the fault of students; it reflects systemic failures and a toxic culture that have disillusioned both learners and teachers alike.
As One Lecturer summarized:
“Contractual Assistant Professors in Kashmir not only struggle for dignified titles, UGC-based salaries, job security, full-year employment, and basic benefits like leaves, pension, emoluments, promotions and rewards that regular faculty enjoy. They also bear the crushing weight of a hierarchy and casteist mentality that extends far beyond the classroom—into families, among relatives, on our streets, and across society at large. At the root of it all lie faulty policies and indifferent education authorities. Indeed, history will remember them”.
The situation has reached an alarming stage in J&K. For nearly two months now, colleges have functioned without adequate faculty. Some students confessed with helplessness:
“We are forced to remain silent, yet pay full fees. To save our poor fathers’ fare, we often prefer staying at home. But when compelled to attend, we sit idle in empty classrooms or pass time making reels in parks. Unfortunately this misery repeats every year. Our colleagues across Kashmir raise their voices in the media, year after year—yet who listens?”
Such voices of despair reflect not indiscipline, but the deep structural vacuum created by neglect.
In contrast, my experiences outside Kashmir—at AMU, JMI, JNU, UOH, and at academic conferences—were refreshingly different. Professors there were approachable, humble, and encouraging of questions. They welcomed dialogue, valued younger faculty, and treated teaching as a shared mission rather than a personal fiefdom. Such examples remind us that change is possible.
It is high time we overhaul our educational system. Respect for teachers must not be confined to empty greetings on Teacher’s Day but should be built into the very structure of our institutions. Scholars—especially those who contribute through research, publications, and intellectual mentorship—deserve recognition, dignity, and equality. The practice of labeling teachers with demeaning titles like “need-based” must end immediately. Even addressing contractual lecturers respectfully as Assistant Professors would be a small but meaningful step. Renaming alone cannot transform roles, but restoring dignity is the first step toward reform.
Their services must be formally acknowledged and fairly compensated. Decent UGC-based salaries, full-year employment, or regularization of services can be positive steps. Those who hold regular PhDs from reputed universities without leave (based on UGC Regulations 2016), while also serving for years of teaching, having cleared UGC NET, can be considered for the regularization drive (having more than seven years of experience including regular PhD—under Special Provisions Act 2010). This will not only open doors of employment for meritorious PhD NET holders but also help the government effectively fill long-term faculty vacancies in J&K’s higher education sector.
Respect must also extend beyond pay scales. Teachers must be judged on the basis of honesty, truthfulness, fairness, and integrity—not on the contractual-permanent divide. Students must be encouraged to provide honest feedback, and contractual faculty should also be considered for rewards just like permanent ones.
Principals and faculty must refrain from addressing contractual lecturers in ways that demean their dignity during student interactions, public gatherings, or college programs. What may appear to be a harmless word or label often leaves deep scars, subtly eroding the sacred stature of teachers—whether permanent or contractual. If we truly believe that teachers are “nation-builders,” such distinctions must vanish from our public discourse.
At the same time, teachers themselves must guard the sanctity of their bond with students. A true teacher is not defined by handshakes or hugs, but by approachability, empathy, and the wisdom to maintain respectful boundaries. No doubt, there are always some decent students; yet, when boundaries blur, others often misuse the opportunity—cracking unnecessary jokes, attempting over-casual gestures, or even putting their arms around teachers’ shoulders.
Colleges too should cultivate an atmosphere of reverence by adorning their walls with thoughtful quotations and reminders that teaching is not merely a job, but a sacred trust. Phrases like “Teachers are divine, an Avtaar of God” or “A teacher is never just a teacher—he is the bridge to all that is eternal” can serve as daily beacons of respect, inspiring both students and faculty to uphold the sanctity of this noble calling.
To honor Teacher’s Day or such celebrations truly, we must restore teaching to its sacred pedestal—where no teacher feels humiliated, no student feels cheated, and no institution tolerates injustice in the name of hierarchy. This day should not be reduced to ritualistic praise; it must become an open forum for debate and critique—where the focus is not merely on celebrating positives, but on courageously confronting the failures and faults that urgently demand attention. Only by doing so can we prevent our education system from sinking further into decay and corruption, and instead set it on the path of renewal.
The Supreme Court itself recently reminded us that reverence for teachers cannot remain confined to ritual chants of “Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwarah” at public functions; it must be lived out in how the nation treats its teachers.
The time has come to bridge the gap between reverence and reality. Teacher’s Day should no longer be an annual celebration of ideals; it must be a turning point for transformation. If teachers are truly prophets of knowledge, then no one among them should remain a prisoner of hierarchy. Only then can we ensure that the light of teaching—passed from Socrates to Radhakrishnan, from the Prophet (PBUH) to today’s classrooms—does not flicker in the shadows of neglect.
That light flickers when teachers are humiliated, students lose faith, and hierarchy matters more than learning. Teachers deserve more than words; they deserve justice. To truly honour this day, we must guard the dignity of teaching and the sanctity of knowledge.
We must guard that light!

Email:----------------------------------rameezln777@gmail.com