Teaching should be the highest paying job: Aamir Khan

May 21, 2010 IANS

Mumbai, May 20 (IANS) Actor Aamir Khan, who has raised pertinent questions about the education system through his applauded films "Taare Zameen Par" and "3 Idiots", believes that teaching should be made the highest paying job in India to encourage the best brains to join the profession.

"By and large, people go for teaching who don't find jobs elsewhere. So if I don't find a job elsewhere I will get into teaching. Therefore the cream of minds from every field end up going into business or something else to achieve success in their lives. The reason is that our teaching jobs don't pay much.

"For me as a part of society, we give maximum value to the teachers, which mean the teaching jobs should be the highest paying. So after getting an education of higher level, a student should feel that his first choice should be to be a teacher because they will feel much more respected, will have a better pay scale, a better life," said Aamir at the 1st anniversary of Forbes India magazine here Thursday.

Aamir maintains that students should be encouraged to enjoy education and eventually grow as good human beings.

"I think we need to teach them to think for themselves, to explore. We need to allow them to challenge. So if a child gives an answer, which sounds incorrect to us, we must not put that child down, we must encourage him to think for himself and question us and encourage him to discover, search, enjoy and grow as a good human being," he said.

Asked what is that one idea that would change the world, he said: "For me education is the big idea. When I say education, I mean education for all. I also mean not just teaching one particular subject to the children but rather allowing them to bloom by recognizing the uniqueness of children. Reaching education to each child... know India is a vast country but that would be the big idea."

Aamir also said that that teaching profession should be given more value in Indian society to increase the quality of education.

"It's not just about giving education but giving quality education. And by quality I mean the quality of teaching we do, and I think for that it is up to us how much value as a society we give to teaching. If we give lot of value to teaching then the quality of teaching also improves," he said.

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Taare Zameen Par