District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

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District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States Chapter 1 Towards Quality Improvements for Teacher Education: Decentralising the System 1.1 Introduction This chapter briefly outlines how the professional development of teachers has been structured, what official commentaries have to say about the quality of teachers, and introduces the structures of management for teacher education, including the two new innovations of District Institutes of Education and Training, and Cluster Resource Centres. 1.2 The professional development of teachers The decades of post-Independence expansion of elementary schooling saw many tensions between quantity and quality. They led to the establishment of a wide network of schools, but those schools tended to have low internal efficiency and disappointing learner achievements (see Annex 1). For many years, a teaching post was virtually guaranteed to those who trained, entitling the incumbent to a lifetime’s security as a civil servant in return for a relatively short and inexpensive training. Unlike secondary teachers, elementary teachers are not graduates. For several post-Independence decades, completion of seven years of elementary schooling plus one year of professional training was considered adequate preparation. This went up to a Secondary School Certificate (+10) in the 1970s and later a Higher Secondary Certificate (+12); Gujarat was the last State to implement the +12 requirement, in 1998. A national survey of elementary teacher education in 1970 lamented It is really sad to note that the quality of teacher education suffered at the cost of quantitative expansion. Qualitative improvement did not receive the attention due to it from educational planners and administrators (NCERT 1970: 114). The syllabi used in training institutions are quite old and outdated. New items have been added to existing syllabi bit by bit. They do not cater to the needs of future teachers. […] There should be a balance between theory and practice (NCERT 1970: 117). Twenty years on, the revised pre-service syllabus of 1991 noted that the ‘status and quality of teacher education of our country especially at the elementary level is far from satisfactory’ (NCERT 1991: 1). Training has been provided by a dispersed resource within a variety of training institutions or colleges; and there has been a prolific and rapid growth of correspondence courses. In the late 1990s, one apex national body gave the following verdict on pre-service teacher education: DFID 11
District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States The system still prepares teachers who do not necessarily become professionally competent and committed at the completion of initial teacher preparation programmes (NCTE 1998a: 5). The need for in-service education was noted in the 1944 Sargeant report, but while some arrangements were made, in-service training has not been provided for all teachers as a regular part of career development. 1.3 The organisation of teacher education 1.3.1 National and State-level apex bodies There are two apex national bodies for teacher education: the long established National Council for Educational Research and Training Teacher Education (NCERT) and the newer National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). NCERT has a wide range of activities which include developing national school and pre-service teacher education curricula which individual States are expected to amend; it develops in-service teacher education packages which States offer in their training institutions and offers specialised training courses itself; and it undertakes research and policy advice. NCTE has so far had a more regulatory role and engaged with quality issues primarily through its legislative functions, although it plans to expand its remit under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (personal communication, NCTE Director, October 2002). At the State level, modelled on the NCERT and with a similar remit, is the State Council for Educational Research and Training or its equivalent 1 . The SCERT steers and supports teacher development, but weaknesses have been acknowledged (see next section). Unlike the other two Councils in the project sample, the Gujarat State Council is one of the few autonomous State Councils in the country. This has allowed it greater flexibility to be responsive and proactive than was previously possible (personal communication, GCERT Director, January 2001). 1.3.2 The centrally sponsored scheme of Restructuring and Revitalising Teacher Education The National Policy on Education of 1986 (revised in 1992) expressed concerns about the quality of teaching and teacher education. Provision to address those concerns was made through a centrally sponsored scheme2 for Restructuring and Revitalising Teacher Education. This scheme makes provision for the revitalising of the SCERTs, for example by providing extra funds to initiate research activities. 1 State Institute for Educational Research and Training (SIERT) in Rajasthan; GCERT (Gujarat Council for Educational Research and Training) in Gujarat; SCERT (State Council for Educational Research and Training) in Madhya Pradesh. 2 Joint, although not necessarily equal, Government of India and State funding for a scheme whose parameters are defined by the centre. 12 DFID
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