District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
had come into teaching with positive intentions seemed defeated by the training
itself before they had even begun to work in schools. Others did not engage with
the quality of the training, since their expectation was simply to accrue enough
point to license them to do what they saw other teachers doing:
The teachers in village primary schools just go and sit there for the whole day
and go back. We will also be doing the same (RAJ/UDR 1st yr st.)
In this job there is less tension and work. In offices, you have to sit and work
for the whole day (RAJ/UDR 2nd yr st).
In Surat DIET, where the training experience was more lively and integrated with
school, student teachers shared many of the concerns about managing to assert a
new teaching approach in existing contexts. In this DIET, there was a much
stronger feeling among students that the students had been inspired by their
trainers to try, and to understand that they could make a difference. In the longer
term, since Surat DIET was well integrated into the District, there was also a
likelihood of remaining in touch with the DIET, and so of sustaining some of that
momentum through continued contact with their lecturers.
4.3 Summary
The accounts in this chapter illustrates many of the factors that create the gap
between processes of pre-service training and required capacities of teachers.
Trainers may lecture about a range of methods, but their preference for lecturing
and reluctance to model a more dynamic and active teacher image sends out an
unarticulated message that teaching can also be done in the usual way. Theory and
practice are polar opposites, rather than integrated with a view to blending content
and pedagogy in pursuit of children’s learning. Training is dominated by content
concerns, is weak in skills development, and does not begin to explore student
teachers’ attitudes and values. Practice teaching concentrates on the delivery of
decontextualised model lessons according to a lesson plan that must be adhered to
if points are not to be lost. Teacher training is approached as if it were secondary
schooling, with a strong focus on content and a weak focus on pedagogical and
community-related issues, rather than a course in professional development: any
focus on learning by student teachers is orientated towards gaining marks.
Training of this nature reinforces rather than dispels the view that pre-service
training ‘has no practical use. It is useful theoretically. We only do it to get good
marks’ (RAJ/UDR 2nd yr. st). It is an example of an approach to education that
Paolo Freire describes as ‘banking’, where deposits of ‘knowledge’ are accumulated
without much regard to context and relevance. The currency of those deposits is
not the currency that is required for school work. It also reflects a view of student
teachers as empty vessels. Yet as these accounts show, these vessels bring to their
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