Last week, I wrote about the perception that teachers of the past had more passion and commitment to their profession than today’s teachers. The people that I had spoken to were non-teachers.

After writing that piece, I spoke to an ex-teacher and a teacher to gauge their thinking and found that, yes, teachers in the past did have more passion but, at the same time, not all teachers in the past were role models. I was also told that there are some very competent and caring teachers in schools today.

Razak Osman, 76, who studied at King Edward VII Secondary School in the 1950s and 1960s and later worked there as a teacher from 1967 to 1984, said not all his teachers were passionate about moulding young minds.

Many teachers, he said, just went through the motions, with some becoming animated at the prospect of beating students for the slightest infringement.

Razak recalls an incident involving a classmate whose teeth protruded in a manner that made it look as though he was perpetually smiling. When one of the teachers first saw the boy, he called the student over, and smacked him on the face, telling him to get rid of that “silly smile” without even finding out the reason.

“There were teachers who took it easy, who were not committed. So to say that all teachers in the past were great teachers is not correct. But there were many excellent teachers too. I had some great teachers teaching me, and I can remember their names even today,” said Razak as he rattled off the names.

When he was a teacher, Razak found that while many of his colleagues were passionate about teaching, there were also some who took every opportunity to skive off work.

“But one thing I can say: none of the teachers, whether passionate or not, acted based on racial or religious bias. They treated everyone the same. The teacher who slapped the boy with the protruding teeth and the boy who got slapped, for instance, were Malays.

“This was particularly so in KE7. There were no race barriers and all the boys mixed freely. If there was any misunderstanding or fight, it was never about race, and when teachers intervened, race was the last thing on their mind.

“However, I noticed a change in the attitude of some teachers from the 1980s. A few teachers began looking at students as members of this or that race.”

Razak quit teaching in1984, and one of the main reasons was that he was being asked to do more administrative work.

“When I got posted to KE7 in 1969, Long Heng Hua was the principal, and what a great principal he was. I was an Art teacher and Mr Long didn’t make a fuss if I did not fill up the record book or attend to other non-art related tasks. He just wanted students to learn, and he wanted results from teachers, which I gave him.

“But after he retired in 1982, the new principal insisted that administrative chores should also be strictly completed. There was no flexibility. Teachers need some flexibility you know.”

It was also the time, Razak said, when students became more rowdy and disrespectful of teachers. “In the past too there were rowdy boys but they had respect for teachers; this began to change in the 1980s.”

A teacher, who did not want to be named, said rowdyism was one of the major problems in schools today. Teachers, she said, were expected to discipline students yet they were not allowed to hit them or touch them.

“You can reprimand the misbehaving student but if he or she continues to do so, you can only refer them to the school head. As a result, they think they don’t have to fear us, that we can’t do anything to them.

“After some time, you’ll feel you are wasting time with such recalcitrant students and you feel it is better to just focus on those students who genuinely want to learn. With the type of administrative work, the expectations of the school head, and the complexities of teaching today, we have no time to sit down and play psychologist with misbehaving students or slow learners.”

She was unhappy with the attitude of some parents who expected “too much” from teachers and who were “over protective” of their children. If parents did not show respect for teachers, she asked, would their children be motivated to do so.

Saying parents should share the blame for rowdyism and poor standards, she argued that it was an injustice to tar all teachers today as being bad or as lacking passion for their profession.

“There are many teachers who are going the extra mile to help students, both in class and on the school field.”

She did, however, concede that the quality of some of today’s teachers was not satisfactory and that there were some lazy ones. She said it was not uncommon to find talk in the staff room centring on recipes and complaints about their husbands, rather than education.

However, she and Razak agreed that teachers played a crucial role in a student’s development and that Education Minister Maszlee Malik needed to pay special attention to the recruitment and training of teachers.

I am with them on this: Maszlee needs to make teacher quality one of his priorities. Perhaps the government should consider improving the pay scheme to draw the best to the teaching profession. If that is not possible due to the country’s financial situation, perhaps the salaries of teachers who do produce results – authenticated by school inspectors – can be increased.

That brings up a question: Do we still have school inspectors? As I recall, these inspectors would drop by to assess teachers, particularly those who had just come out of teacher training.

Inspectors of schools, if I remember correctly, were feared when I was a student. It’s time to bring them back if such a post no longer exists. If there are still school inspectors, clearly they are sleeping on the job and it’s time to prod them into action.

I think it is time to legislate changes in the bloated civil service to make it easier to sack under performers and skivers, including among teachers and education department staff.

Maszlee would do well to recruit people who show a passion for teaching, not just those with degrees or double degrees or PhDs. Let’s not forget that there are more than a few duds among degree holders and PhDs.

I remember when I was schooling, teacher trainees from the Day Training Centre would be posted to teach us now and then, with someone observing them. Perhaps there is a need for longer teaching practice.

Also, when I was schooling, there were almost an equal number of men and women teachers but today women outnumber men. Perhaps Maszlee should look at ways to attract men to join the profession.

Maszlee should remember that, as he works to revamp the education system, the selection of school heads is of utmost importance. I am often told that in the past three or four decades selection of school heads has not been based entirely on merit in all cases and that race and politics are often part of the equation.

In a 2003 paper on “Teachers Make a Difference: What is the research evidence?” John Hattie of the University of Auckland said: “It is what teachers know, do, and care about which is very powerful in this learning equation.” He concluded that “excellence in teaching is the single most powerful influence on achievement” in schools.

But, of course, we don’t need studies to tell us that do we?

A Kathirasen is an executive editor at FMT.

The views expressed by the writer do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.