District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
10.3.3 Models of pre- and in-service teacher education
This study found that pre-service training was lagging behind contemporary
classroom challenges, rather than preparing teachers to engage effectively with
them. Emerging teachers do not, for example, have sufficient technical
competence in the theory and practice of literacy acquisition within which to frame
textbook content. Sample DIETs were graduating teachers who were technically not
fully competent to teach the current school curriculum. If pre-service education
through DIETs is to play its expected part in leading educational change, there is
a need for a comprehensive overhaul that places it firmly on a competency footing,
and integrates content and pedagogy.
Similarly, in-service education adheres to a ‘skills and knowledge’ model that is
weakened in practice by its emphasis on content at the cost of supporting teachers
in the development of skills. Because they are not preceded by needs analyses, these
programmes often appear irrelevant to teachers; and this is reinforced by the onceoff
nature of training programmes and lack of provision for their reinforcement at
school. This has led to widespread disaffection among teachers about training, and
the notion of training itself is further devalued by inadequate seconding
arrangements between the DIET and Education Department.
However, skills alone are not enough. The technological approach of the training
model adopted does not allow it to embrace a key challenge of contemporary
teacher development: the need to engage with teachers’ values and attitudes, which
shape their will to adopt training messages. It is not therefore capable of engaging
effectively with what most available research evidence, to which this study
contributes, identifies as one of the most important issues in relation to promoting
elementary education of quality: low teacher will and motivation. Underlying this
approach to training is a view of the teacher as a technician, implementing the
ideas of others – a view of teachers that denies the existence of practitioner
knowledge and theories of practice that provide the rationales for teachers’ actions.
The findings of this study strongly indicate that the dominant training model
pursued by DIETs is in itself inappropriate to meet contemporary challenges.
Changes within the dominant model
The training model currently pursued is compromised by recruitment procedures.
All too often, these are not ensuring that technically competent and motivated
people are becoming DIET staff. The preceding section provides suggestions as to
how this might be addressed. This study was able also to identify good practices
by some trainers (not necessarily DIET staff) within the dominant model (see
chapters 5 and 9) which provide indications of more effective uses of time during
training. Even when the training experience had in itself been stimulating,
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