Politics can also be a reason why teachers receive less respect. Before the boomers, education was a political backwater. School board trustees were elected; very few people knew anything about them and fewer cared. Politicians showed little interest in education. But once the boomers had kids in the system, all of that changed, he adds.

S Radha Krishnan (name changed), an English teacher in a private school, feels schools cannot right the wrongs of society and teachers cannot become substitute parents. ”They are responsible for setting boundaries for their children’s behaviour and sticking to those boundaries when the going gets tough. Both parties need to work together. Parents must be helped and given confidence to take back control .They are responsible for setting a good example to their children and for devoting precious time so that children feel known and valued as individuals and as part of the family,” he says.

Conference and meetings are proven ways to give feedback and can be easily adapted for high school, middle school and even elementary school. This would provide an opportunity to share ideas among students, teachers, parents and administrators to hlp provide the best possible education.

Swathi Ganesh, mother of two children, said schools obviously needed to be engaging for students to learn.”Great teachers can make their students fall in love with their subject, whereas a bad one can cause an antipathy that could linger. The subject being taught does not define whether the students will like the class; rather it is the teacher who makes the subject interesting,” she says.

Competition makes education a requirement and not an achievement. In this competitive environment, it is important to be more patient and spend more time understanding issues at school. “Tomorrow’s parents are more likely to have less patience, be more frazzled and less interested in their child’s issues making them even worse as parents,” said a professor.