primary school teachers the twists and turns of ... - ERU Consultants

Version 20 Oct 08, edited finalschool…The making of a teacher involves a process of development of a beginner into an equippedprofessional…Just as the curriculum of school education is to be based on an adequate understanding andarticulation of the way in which children learn and develop, the curriculum of teachereducation is to be based on an understanding and articulation of the way in which adultslearn and develop (…) Adult learners are autonomous and self directed, have a vast amount oflife experiences and knowledge, are inclined to be pragmatic and goal-directed and respond betterto learning if learning is problem/life/task-oriented….In the light of the above, the following would emerge as implications for teacher education:teaching needs to be problem oriented and not discipline or theory oriented; approaches suchas case studies, simulations, role-play and action research would be more appropriate for theprofessional development of teachers; emphasis of instruction should not be memorisation ofcontent but accomplishment of tasks, insights, competence; open-ended activities andquestions could bring out the vast experiences of prospective teachers, as also their ‘personaltheories’ about knowledge, learning and learners for scrutiny and analysis…Some worthwhile models exist in the country—the Bachelor in ElementaryEducation programme (B. El. Ed.) in Delhi University, the newly introduced M.Edprogramme in education at TISS, the Digantar endeavour to develop a programmefor teacher education and, of course, the painstaking process adopted during theearly days of SKP to not only identify young people with aptitude but to alsogradually nurture, teach and train them to become teachers. In the last five to tenyears several private as well as not-for-profit institutions too have tried to create anew genre of teacher-training institutions. However, regulatory roadblocks havefrustrated such efforts. At one level the government (meaning NCTE) wants tomonopolise the entire teacher education space in the name of safeguarding qualityand preventing ‘commercialisation’. At the same time large numbers of teachereducation institutions of questionable quality have mushroomed across the lengthand breadth of the country.While it may be easy to lay the entire blame at the doorstep of regulation that wentsour and ended up becoming the biggest stumbling block, the reality is that allstakeholders have been party to this sorry state of affairs. The quality of teacherswho come out of institutions and universities is a sad reflection on the state of highereducation in India. The key issue is not that there are no tried and tested approacheseither in India or in the world. It is that teacher preparation has never received thekind of attention it merits either from the elementary and school education sphereor in higher education.This is one area where teachers themselves can do little—but what the system doeshas a devastating impact on the overall quality of education in the country. Therehave been two major consultations on teachers in the last four years—one organisedby the Aga Khan Foundation in Hyderabad in August 2007 and the other by theAzim Premji Foundation in Bangalore in October 2005. Teachers, teacher educators,administrators, educationists, researchers and social activists came together to sharetheir concerns and also find ways to improve the situation. The overwhelmingmessage from them was that a radically new strategy is called for and tinkering withtraining programmes and piecemeal reforms will not do.49