Quality Improvement in
Elementary Teacher Education – An
Introduction
Chairperson, NCTE
Since independence the country has made
impressive progress in fulfilling its constitutional commitment of providing
free and compulsory education to all children up to the age of 14, i.e. 8 years
of elementary education. In 1950-51, there were about 210 thousand primary and
14 thousand upper primary schools. By the year 1999-2000 there numbers have
increased to 642 thousand and 198 thousand, respectively. Yet the goal of
achieving universal elementary education seems to have receded away at a faster
pace in spite of the best efforts of the State, and thus far has remained out
of reach. Reasons for it are not hard to see. In addition to clearing the
backlog of 60 million out of school children the State has to arrange access
for education to 20 million children born each year. Therefore, instead of
giving an historical account of the various initiatives that were taken up by
the State during the past fifty years for achieving universal elementary
education and of reasons why the target period of ten years that lapsed in 1960
had to be continually shifted from time to time, it would be prudent to focus
on the recent initiative of the Government of India, called the Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA): An Initiative for Universal Elementary
Education. The broad targets of the SSA are that all eligible children will
be enrolled in school by 2003; that they will complete five years of schooling
by 2007 and of eight years by the 2010. There are many dimensions of the SSA
scheme. Some of the dimensions that have bearing on the mandate given to the
NCTE in its Act are the analysis of the curriculum of pre-service courses
vis-à-vis task profiles for teaching at the elementary stage of schooling;
recruitment qualifications of teachers for the primary stage, upper primary
stage and for the integrated elementary stage; innovations in pre-service
teacher education for this stage and their effectiveness; implications of
appointment of Para-teachers on the status of teachers. It is in this context the two-day National
Consultation has been arranged by the NCTE.
It should not be found surprising that because
of the heterogeneity of conditions of school education in the different States
there is neither uniformity in the structure of elementary school stage nor in
the curriculum of the pre-service teacher education for this stage. In some of
the states the upper primary stage is stapled with the secondary stage and
graduate teachers with B.Ed. degree are appointed for teaching and in some of
the states it forms a part of the middle-school and teachers with class 12 and
two-year diploma are appointed for teaching. The University of Delhi has
introduced a 4-year pre-service course, called the B.El. Ed., for teaching at
the elementary stage and the Indira Gandhi Open University offers a 2-year
diploma course for untrained teachers in service. In the wake of the experience
of the DPEP scheme many of the states have introduced curriculum reforms in
pre-service teacher education for achieving quality in elementary education.
Also, there is a palpable concern about the irrelevance of the curriculum of
the basic teacher training diploma course that is being followed in the country
particularly when the context of schooling for living effectively in the 21st
century has radically changed. The UNESCO document Learning the Treasure
Within has identified the four pillars of education, learning to
know, learning to do, learning to live together
and learning to be. As the world has entered in the information
age and is inundated by an unprecedented information explosion, it is being
realised that the basic skill to be learnt now is that of learning how to
learn, for each person has to develop an attitude of lifelong learning. Also,
now the parents are asking for a greater say on the education to be given to
their children. Therefore, in such a context the planning for education necessarily
has to be grassroots up rather than being driven by a top down approach. Many
experts in teacher education have given thought for working out strategies for
improving the quality of elementary teacher education and for making it
contextual. In planning this two days national consultation meeting effort has
been made to bring together a galaxy of experts from the categories of policy
makers, educational administrators and teacher education. It is hoped that this
group will discuss different aspects of pre-service teacher education for
achieving quality in elementary schooling and also the allied issues such as
teacher recruitment and the status of teachers. In the following a brief
analysis of issues that have been scheduled for discussion in this meeting has
been given.
For teaching up to the primary stage it is
generally accepted that subject teachers are not required and each teacher
should be able to teach all the school subjects. Therefore, the recruitment
qualification of a pass in class 12 and a two-year pre-service diploma course
laid down by the NCTE has received endorsement from most of the states. Some of
the states that traditionally have been recruiting teachers with a pass in
class 10 and a certificate course of one year duration have been given time for
switching over to the NCTE qualifications. For teaching at the upper primary
stage subject experts are appointed. For teaching mathematics, or science, or
social studies, or English or a regional language it would be essential that
the concerned teacher should have studied that subject at least at the level of
classes 11 and 12. Therefore, for teaching at the upper primary stages many of
the school systems such as the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, the Navodaya
Vidyalaya Samiti appoint graduate teachers having the B.Ed. degree. In this
context it has gained urgency to answer whether the curriculum of the two-year
basic teacher education course provides professional competence for teaching
the entire span of elementary stage i.e. from class 1 to class 8 or is valid
for teaching the primary stage i.e. from class 1 to class 5 only. An effort has
been made in compiling relevant information from as many states as possible on
their recruitment rules and in analysing the curriculum of their basic teacher
training courses. These data will be presented at this meeting.
There are other curriculum related issues such
as making school internship an essential component of the pre-service course,
duration of the course and its theoretical and praxis components that will be
discussed in this consultation meeting. As the different states have tried to
improve the quality of their elementary school education through initiatives in
pre-service and in-service teacher education, this national level consultation
meeting should function as a forum for exchanging experiences. The challenge is
to evolve a framework for pre-service teacher education in the context of the
new role of teacher who is expected to act as change agent for inculcating in
children the values for living harmoniously in a pluralistic secular society
and for developing in them the ability of learning how to learn and for making
education an instrument not only for one’s personal good but also for the
general societal good. Experiences of four State Governments on pre-service
teacher education, namely Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and Uttar
Pradesh will be presented at this meeting by their Secretaries and their
Directors of the SCERT. Also, innovations in pre-service elementary teacher education
tried out by three universities, namely, Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia and IGNOU
will be presented in the meeting. The University of Delhi has developed a
4-year B.El.Ed. Course specially designed for preparing elementary school
teachers. This course is being offered by some of its colleges as an integrated
programme taught jointly by their content faculty and faculty drawn from
disciplines cognate to education. The Institute of Advanced Study in Education
(IASE) of the Jamia Millia Islamia has developed a two-year diploma course on
pre-service teacher education for preparing elementary school teachers. The
IGNOU has developed a two-year distance education diploma course for untrained
elementary school teachers in service. Experts with backgrounds of teaching and
research in the formal teacher education system, and those who have worked at
the grassroots level with elementary school teachers, those who have been
policy makers and those who are or those who were educational administrators
would be sharing their experiences and vision for pre-service teacher
education.
It may be safe to presume that a significant
outcome of this consultation meeting would be the development of a curriculum
framework for pre-service course required for preparing teachers who by playing
the role of facilitator of learning can transact the new school curriculum. But
for effective implementation of programmes of teacher education it will be
crucial that teacher educators possess professional attributes such as
competence and commitment for teaching. Therefore, the first task of the State
Governments would have to be to change their policy of posting secondary school
teachers, who generally neither have experience of teaching at the elementary
level nor possess professional expertise for teacher education, as teachers in
the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) or as faculty in the
State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT). A separate cadre of
teacher educators may have to be created by following the qualifications laid
down in the NCTE regulations. Recent study on the DIET scheme carried out by
the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) has
revealed that if this scheme has not achieved all that was expected of it the
responsibility can be squarely laid on the placement of persons unsuitable for
carrying out the tasks to be performed at these institutions. It is for this
reason alone, even as of now, many of the DIETs have not been able to fulfil
the NCTE norms and standards and their pre-service programme have remained as
unrecognised. If in a district its DIET is an unrecognised institution it
cannot run pre-service programme and the problem of providing trained teachers
in the schools in that district get further compounded for that DIET cannot
also function as a Resource Centre for the distance education programmes. The
SCERT of a State is the nodal centre for coordinating programmes of teacher
education. If care is not exercised in appointing faculty in a SCERT by matching
qualifications and experience with the task profiles required for pre and
in-service teacher education, the benefit of a crucial instrument for
monitoring quality of teacher education in that State may not be available. It
is for these reasons in the 10th Five Year Plan in the central
scheme for teacher education creation of a separate cadre of teacher educators
for appointment in DIETs and the SCERT has been made a pre-requisite for
receiving central assistance. Another important category of institutions that
were expected to contribute to improvement of the quality of elementary teacher
education through their pre and in-service courses and research programmes were
the Institutes of Advanced Studies in Education (IASE). The IASE were to run
M.Ed. degree course with a specialization in elementary teacher education and
also conduct in-service courses for DIET and SCERT faculty. Therefore, for
achieving the objectives of the SSA it would be necessary that a network of
DIETs, SCERT and IASE be put into place so that these institutions may provide
support to each other.
Induction of Para-teachers for providing
opportunity for schooling in remote habitations seems to have spread its
tentacles even in schools located in the urban areas. With the appointment of
teachers on payment of fixed remuneration the status of teaching as a
profession has received a hard blow. The financial constraint of the State and
its will to provide access to schooling to all children may have been the
compulsion for appointment of Para-teachers. If the quality of education that
children studying from Para-teachers has to be ensured the issues such as the
nature of induction training and subsequent trainings for helping them
discharge their teaching tasks with competence would have to be answered
through research studies. It is in this context some of the states have been
asked to include in their presentations their experiences of Para-teacher
schemes.
In summing up it would be in order to mention
that recently the NCTE has carried out pioneering experiment on in-service
education of teachers by using the Direct Media Service (DMS) of the
WorldSpace. The WorldSpace is a wireless delivery system of multimedia
information from a satellite with a footprint of 14 million square kilometres.
Lessons in multimedia were delivered to teachers in their computers connected
with a PC-adapter to a 10 cm antenna for receiving data at the speed of 128
kbps. The success of the experiments that were carried out in end of November
2001 in use of advanced information and communication technologies for
in-service education have opened the possibility of making available to
teachers in schools throughout the country lessons given by experts appropriate
for different levels of education and that too in multimedia.