Challenges of Teacher Education in India

The funniest thing is that the teacher education centers and the curriculum followed in the teacher education have very little focus on new trends in education. The SSA training programs have excluded the teacher educators and have been confined to in-service teacher training alone. The pre-service teacher education sector has been kept away from the SSA and therefore, the teacher aspirants passing out of the B.Ed colleges get exposed to the new curriculum only when they join the schools. Teacher education institutions have been proliferating and mushrooming all over the State with profit motives until the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) with its headquarters in Bangalore, came up with and insisted on mandatory norms and standards for these institutions. As a result of their intervention, many institutions have constructed buildings with classrooms and procured infrastructure to meet their standards. These institutions were even been forced to increase the salary of teacher educators to the basic amount in the government scale. But later, the effectiveness of NCTE intervention reduced and the powerful lobby of private education institutions had their way in running their teacher education shops. There has been a great expansion of higher education over the years. Today, there are more than 200 universities and 8000 colleges. Kothari commission remarks "The destiny of India is being shaped in its classrooms." No doubt education plays a significant role in nation's development but the quality of education is greatly determined by the quality of teachers, therefore, great efforts were made and still are being made to improve the quality of teacher education. Some of the problems concerning teacher education are discussed below:

Defects of selection procedure lead to deterioration of the quality of teachers. Better selection method would not only improve the quality of training but also save the personal and social wastage. Some suggestions are mentioned: (a) Candidates should be interviewed (b) Test of General Knowledge should be applied. (c) Test in school subjects. (d) Test of language (e) Test of intelligence should be administered (f) Aptitude; interest and attitude inventory should be administered.

In India, this period is of one year after the graduation - the effective session being of eight to nine months. The main purpose of teacher education programme is to develop healthy attitude, broad based interest and

The existing training programme does not provide adequate opportunities to the student teachers to develop competency because the organizers of teacher's training programme are not aware of the existing problems of schools. Therefore there should be a close matching between the work schedule of the teacher in a school and the programme adopted for teacher preparation in a training college.

A student teacher should know the meaning of education, its objectives, the socio-cultural and politico-economics background, the principles that guide construction of curriculum etc. But a proper preparation towards a good. Orientation is impossible in a short duration. Following steps may be taken in this connection: (i) Allowing more time to learners for good reading and sound build-up of the intellect and attitude, (ii) Pruning the existing course (iii) Arranging for exchange of experience than merely attending lectures, (iv) Changing the mode of testing inputs (v) The content must have direct implications in the daily school teaching.

Inspire of all kinds of elaborate arrangements regarding practice in teaching, student teachers are non-serious to the task of teaching, deficient in sense of duty irresponsible, aimless, indifferent to children, lacking innovative measure in teaching which are great obstacles in the development of pedagogical skills.

The supervisory organizations for practice teaching aims at bringing improvement in the instructional activity of the student teachers by using various techniques and practical skills in teaching and help them to develop confidence in facing the classroom situations. This is done through following types of supervisions:

It aims at guiding in planning their lessons, learning to organize contents, formulating suitable gestures and developing other related skills. At present the lesson

The B.Ed. programme does not emphasize the knowledge of the basic subject. The whole teaching practice remains indifferent with regard to the subject knowledge of the student teacher.

In India teacher educators are averse to innovation and experimentation in the use of methods of teaching. Their acquaintance with modern class-room communication devices is negligible.

As has been observed by education commission, the teacher education has become isolated from schools and current development in school education. The schools consider the teacher education department as an alien institution and not a nursery for the professional development of school teacher. These departments only observe the formality of finishing the prescribed number of lessons no caring for the sounders of pedagogy involved in the procedure.

Most of candidates do not have the requisite motivation and an academic background for a well-deserved entry in the teaching profession.

In India, the teacher education programme is being given a step-motherly treatment. About 20 percent of the teacher education institutions are being run in rented buildings without any facility for an experimental school or laboratory, library and other equipments necessary for a good teacher education department. There are no separate hostel facilities for student teachers.

The State Education Department have no data on the basis of which they may work out the desired intake for their institutions. There is a considerable lag between the demand and supply of teachers. This has created the problems of unemployment and underemployment.

In India, research in education has been considerably neglected. The research conducted is of inferior quality. The teacher education programmes are not properly studied before undertaking any research.

Most of the programmes are being conducted in a routine and unimaginative manner. Even the association of teacher educators has not contributed anything towards development of a sound professionalization of teacher education in the country.

 Bozdogan, A. E. Aydin D. & Yildirim, K. (2007). Teachers ‘attitudes towards teaching profession. Kirsehir, j. Educ.8(2);83-97  Chobe, S.P., & Chobe, A. (2006). School Organization. Noida: Mayur Paperbex.  Derek Bok, Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization ofHigher Education, Princeton University Press, 2004.  Gupta, A.M. (1999). Educational Management. New Delhi: Bharat Prakashan. Publications. University News. Vol. 49, No.09, February 28-March 06.  Usha M.D. (2010). Challenges Before Indian Government (Convocation Address).  Vashist, S.R. (2003). Professional Education of Teachers. Jaipur: Mangal Deep.

Principal, Ganpati Institute of Education (Bilaspur), Districts Yamunanagar (Haryana)