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(The Gist of Kurukshetra) TEACHER EDUCATION: CHALLENGES AND PROBLEMS [NOVEMBER-2019]

(The Gist of Kurukshetra) TEACHER EDUCATION: CHALLENGES AND PROBLEMS

[NOVEMBER-2019]

TEACHER EDUCATION: CHALLENGES AND PROBLEMS

Though many reforms are brought in teacher education particularly after independence yet there are many more emerging issues and challenges that need urgent attention for improving the quality and professional development of teachers. Some of these are as follows:

There are about 19000 teacher education institutions in the country, of which 92 per cent are privately-owned and are largely in rural areas. Various studies including J.S. Verma Commission shows that a large proportion of teacher education colleges are not providing quality education. If we see the result of Central Teacher Eligibility Test conducted during 2011 for students who wanted to become primary and upper primary teachers after acquiring the teacher education degree, it was less than 1 per cent in the country. The situation has not improved much now as the pass percentage of students is still less than 18% in the country.
Most of the independent teacher education institutions are in rural areas and running different courses in teacher education. In these institutions, large numbers of posts are also lying vacant as quality teachers are not prepared. There is also a general observation and complain about these institutions that malpractices like fake attendance of students, non-attending teachers, etc is prevalent in these institutions.
NCTE ( 2014,2019) revised notifications have increased the duration of teacher education programmes like B.Ed and M.Ed. running of admission of students, equipment, physical facilities and qualified faculty etc.
During transaction of curriculum of different courses of teacher education programmes, it is observed that theory and practice, and content and pedagogy of these programmes are not integrated. It has not resolved so far and proves to be a great hurdle in preparing quality teachers and teacher educators.
In our existing system, the teachers with general degree of B.Ed. have been teaching from elementary to senior secondary stages. Even at some places, they are teaching subjects which they have not studied at graduate and postgraduate levels. It resulted into many complicated problems like drop out, absenteeism and low achievement among the children.
The centrally sponsored scheme of restructuring and re-organization of teacher education launched in the nineties in the light of NPE, 1986 by Government of India could not realize the objectives. The Programme on Mass Orientation for School Teachers (PMOST) could not reach the field in its real spirit. The institutions like DIETs, CTEs, IASEs, and SCERTs are not functioning according to its role and functions.
In case of higher education, there is no provision for pre-service education. Teachers are working without professional degrees in teacher education colleges and universities, in different institutions and universities for preparing quality professional teachers, teacher educators, curriculum developers, educational policy analysts, educational planners, administrators, supervisors and researchers and school principals. There is resentment at few places among stakeholders facing the problem.
Both teacher education and school education are working in isolation and does not have any relationship between the two in curriculum and its translation. The pre-service teacher education curriculum does not reflect the needs and demands of students and school teachers.
There is no mechanism of Management Information System (MIS) on Teacher Education. The data relating percentage of untrained teachers, unemployed trained teachers, number of teacher educators and their specialisation, curriculum and syllabus at different levels, frequency of curriculum revision, innovative programmes.