District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
1.5 Quality of the District Institutes of Education and Training
A national study of teacher education initiated in 1997 by the National Council
for Teacher Education and accompanying State-level reports 3 provide indications
of official dissatisfaction with DIETs (boxes 1.2 and 1.3). They are critical of the
quality of the in-service programmes; and also of the recruitment and calibre of the
trainers. The National Action Plan for Teacher Education also says:
There is very little provision, if at all, for training and retraining of teacher
educators. In fact teacher educators are by default and not by training since
about all teacher educators in elementary teacher training institutions possess a
secondary teacher training certificate, and were trained to be a secondary school
teacher. They too need training if the quality of elementary teacher training –
both pre-service and in-service – is to be improved (NAP 1996: 15).
Box 1.2: Madhya Pradesh State critique of teacher education
(NCTE 1998a)
The picture that emerges after the study presents a rather grim situation of
teacher education in Madhya Pradesh, with weaknesses outweighing strengths
in almost all areas (p. 90).
In-service programmes have generally been ineffective […] There is generally
no evaluation of the training at the end of the programme which makes the
training more of a ritual rather than a meaningful activity ( p. 285).
One of the basic reason for ineffectiveness of the in-service programmes is lack
of interest of the trainees in training. Neither is there any incentive for those
who take the training seriously, nor is there any deterrent for those who take it
very lightly (p. 285).
The set-up of DIETs, CTEs, and IASEs do not satisfy the NCTE norms – many
posts in all categories are lying vacant. Even when they are filled, it is only by
placing unqualified persons against the post (p. 108) [and the numbers of such
persons] are important factors which contribute to the sub-standard quality of
teacher education (p. 281).
There is no systematic effort at present to upgrade the professional competency
of teacher educators. High quality of teacher educators is essential for raising the
quality of teachers and teaching-learning in schools (NCTE 1998a: 287-288).
3 A report from Gujarat State is not available.
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