After the enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (popularly called RTE) teachers working in governmental schools in rural areas face the challenge of educating millions of first-generation learners, most of whom belong to socially and economically weaker sections. The education system of India has succeeded to some extent in enrolling these students in accessible schools. The quality of education provided in government schools, however, still remains a matter of concern. As reflected in several studies, most students do not have grade-specific learning levels. In popular discourse teachers are held responsible for the deteriorating condition of government schools. Usually portrayed as poorly-trained, frequently absent, work-shy, hard-to-please, and occasionally corrupt, teachers are going through a kind of identity crisis in contemporary India. Thus, on the one hand, we have the “quality problem”- the learning crisis prevalent in elementary schools, and on the other hand we have the “teacher problem”- the popular perception that the performance of teachers in government schools is substandard. These two sets of problems are entangled in such a way that one cannot to be addressed without grappling with the other. This paper seeks to explore efficacy beliefs of teachers. Previous research on teachers’ efficacy beliefs suggests that teachers with high sense of efficacy are likely to perform better than teachers with low self-efficacy. The strength of efficacy beliefs is also positively correlated with students’ learning levels. The data suggest that the participants of this study feel confident of their effectiveness but they do not refer to students’ learning outcomes while evaluating themselves as teachers. The source of their efficacy beliefs lies in their familiarity with students, experience of positive behavioural change in students and their own personality traits.