District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
The branch I like the most in the DIET is PSTE. When I was doing my PTC I
could see that in PTC training there were many things lacking and this much is
left out, which is very necessary when you get to school (GUJ/SUR/Prin
22.12.00).
This DIET had made innovations, such as dismissing the usual low key prayer
assembly that set a poor tone for the day, and replacing it with a child-centred
prayer assembly, consisting of rhymes, action songs, reciting of poems, story
telling, and dramatisation of a story, along with celebration of students’ birthdays,
and discussion instead of a lecture. Observations of this assembly confirmed that
students learned to speak and read with confidence in front of an audience, and
this helped teachers avoid monotonous recitations to students (see for example box
4.6). Another striking aspect was that the distance between staff and students was
reduced through this less formal atmosphere. This also formed a link with inservice
activities, as students demonstrated this type of prayer assembly to inservice
teachers to encourage them to do the same in schools. The message had
certainly passed among teachers: this assembly was favourably commented on by
a teacher in Santrampur District during a training programme.
Observations of practice teaching in both years at this DIET indicated although
the components of the practice lesson have been changed, and there is more
discussion and formative feedback for students than was observed in any of the
other DIETs, there is still a discernible ‘ideal lesson’ format: introduction (by
teacher); 3-4 ‘open’ questions on the topic by teacher to student; exposition of
topic by teacher; demonstration of teaching-learning materials by teacher; group
work (by children, but more a matter of different seating than interactive group
learning); recapitulation (by teacher). Just as elsewhere, marks depend on students
adhering to this format, even when it is not appropriate – if they do not use
teaching-learning materials for example, or do not do group work, they forfeit
marks. Classroom and multi-grade management are still weak areas, as is the
recognition of differential learning speeds among students. No attempt to draw on
student knowledge or experience, and expand those, or to encourage questions
from students, was noted in ten lessons observed. The transmission model taught
here is a stronger version than that taught elsewhere, but pre-service training in
Surat DIET too adheres to the same model.
In Santrampur DIET, lecturers had made some changes to the evaluation format
(Fig. 4.1). This alteration underlines the dominance of the teacher-centred focus
of training process, as the format neglects evaluation of the trainee’s performance
in relation to student learning. Here, a pre-service lecturer shared his anxieties
about the quality of practice teaching and its evaluation.
86 DFID