The Anxious Generation Meets an Unprepared System

The Anxious Generation Meets an Unprepared System

Post-COVID, teachers share a common experience: something has significantly changed. Children are more distracted; they are simply not able to focus. They have become very thin-skinned. Complaints about abusive language and similar concerns are now frequent. A kind of common consensus is emerging. The Anxious Generation captures this phenomenon beautifully. It is not local—it is global. Classrooms, today, have become a really challenging place to handle.

The question is: have teachers changed post-COVID? Has teacher preparation changed? We do not see any systemic intervention that has brought about a meaningful turnaround in teacher education. I am not aware of formal research in this specific area, but through my empirical experience, I would say that if we meet ten teachers, at least five come with degrees from “non-attending” colleges—places where degrees are obtained without actually attending.

This adds to the problem. An already less-motivated population enters the profession, and without proper training, steps into classrooms. They are not equipped with the necessary skills to deal with increasingly complex classroom realities. The divide is quite visible.

Many of my colleagues—now principals—often share that when they sit on interview boards, it becomes frustrating to identify even one suitable candidate, even after interviewing 30 or 40 teachers who already hold eligibility degrees. What this shows is that many candidates have “ticked the boxes,” but in terms of real preparedness—knowledge and skill—they are lacking.

This points to a deeper issue: nothing substantial has changed in teacher education. Do we recall any systemic intervention that has brought a major shift? There is little visible investment in teacher education. The pattern continues—more and more teachers enrolling in private colleges, often with the perception that degrees are being “sold.”

On the government side, institutions like DIETs and SCERTs across the country face a severe shortage of teaching faculty. Much of the work is now handled by contract and guest faculty.

So, this side of the equation remains largely unchanged.

The few universities that run programs like B.Ed. are not sufficient for a country of India’s scale. We have nearly one crore teachers. Even if 2-3 % retire every year, we need close to 2-3 lakh new teachers annually. Government institutions with proper faculty strength are not producing anywhere near that number.

Overall, classrooms have begun to resemble a real battlefield—and it is the children who are suffering.

The kind of attention, skill, and knowledge required in teachers to engage with this generation—what Haidt calls the “Anxious Generation”—is largely missing. This calls for an immediate and intense response. Not just at the policy level, but also within schools—to seriously think about how the teachers already in the system can be equipped with the skills needed to work with this generation. And perhaps the real question is not whether children have changed—they clearly have—but whether we are willing to change with them. Can we continue to send teachers into classrooms equipped for a world that no longer exists? Or will we finally acknowledge that teaching this generation demands a different kind of preparation, a different kind of sensitivity, and a different kind of system? Because if we don’t respond now, the gap will only widen—and it is the children who will quietly bear the cost.