QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN TEACHER EDUCATION by International Education and Research Journal

Research Paper

Education

E-ISSN No : 2454-9916 | Volume : 3 | Issue : 7 | July 2017

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN TEACHER EDUCATION

Mrs. Jishnupriya Rout Lecturer in Education, Hirakud College, Sambalpur, Odisha, India. ABSTRACT Quality of education acts as a significant factor in the process of development of nations. The development of nation rests on the shoulders of teachers because they shape the future generation. Thus the quality of teachers directly depends on the quality of teacher education. The way teachers teach is the critical concern in any reform to design quality. Effective teacher education can only enhance the quality of teacher as well as education. The intent of the present paper is to enhance the teacher quality in India by focusing on the role of teacher in promoting quality, need of teacher education and some major problems in teacher education and measures for improving quality of teacher education. Various problems of teacher education namely, defective curriculum, use of traditional methods, defective selection procedure, negative attitude of pupil-teacher, lack of proper infrastructural facilities, isolation of teacher education, lack of facilities for the professional growth of teacher educators, neglect of in-service training, inadequate empirical research, commercialization in private sector, imbalance in supply and demand, quality crisis, poor integration of skills, mismatches between teacher educator and teacher trainees, incompatible modes of education have been dwelt on this paper . Some measures for improving quality of teacher education namely, reorganization of course, innovations, development of positive attitude of pupil teacher, removal of isolation of teacher education, close down of inferior quality of institution, emphasis of in-service training, open and distance learning, improve of evaluation and monitoring programme, good research work, proper selection procedure, provide good infrastructural facility, use of ICT for school education have been discussed in this paper. The paper concludes that teacher education system in India calls for revolutionary changes. KEY WORDS: Quality, Teacher, Teacher Education, Problems and Measures. INTRODUCTION: Teaching as a noble profession contributes significantly in the nation building process. Producing quality teachers should be a crucial aspect in formulating education policy of any country. The teacher community plays a pivotal role in entire educational system of a country in the sense that the success or failure of education policy largely depends on them. The efficiency of an educational system depends largely on the efficiency of its teachers. Infrastructure, equipments, curricula, books and teaching methods are no doubt important for quality education. Teachers are one of the main pillars of the society responsible for educating young people for different walks of life. The teacher is the real social-architect who can really shape the destiny of India by imparting need based education to the future generation of society. The socio-economic and political development of any society is depend upon a well-coordinated teacher education programme. QUALITY OF EDUCATION AND ROLE OF TEACHER IN PROMOTING QUALITY: One way of looking at quality concerns the relationship between different inputs and measure of student performance or output. The outputs are usually students’ results on achievement test, assessment or examination. The inputs include a wide variety of factors, infrastructure and resources, quality of teaching environment, textbooks, teacher preparation, teacher salaries, supervision, attitudes and incentives, educational institutional climate, curriculum, students’ physical well-being and family and socio-economic context. Another way of looking at quality involves measuring the efficiency of the system. Educational efficiency is measured internally by the rates of completion, dropout and repetition. Efficiency is also measured externally by looking at quality focuses on the content, context and relevance of education. The emphasis on teacher-empowerment has grown from a variety of roots. The idea of reflective practice assumes that teacher are professionally capable of reflecting on the school and classroom situation. So teachers are capable of making a large number of instructional and classroom management decisions. The quality of the good teachers would include many of the following: Ÿ

Sufficient knowledge of subject matter to teach with confidence.

Knowledge and skills in a range of appropriate and varied teaching methodologies.

Fluency in the language of instruction.

Knowledge of sensitivity and interest in young learners.

Ability to reflect on teaching practice and children’s response.

Ability to modify teaching approaches as a result of reflection.

Ability to create and sustain an effective learning environment.

Understanding of the curriculum and in purposes. Particularly when reform programs and new paradigms of teaching and learning are introduced.

General professionalism, good morale and dedication to the goals of teaching.

Ability to communicate effectively.

Ability to communicate enthusiasm for learning to students.

Interest in students an individual, sense of caring and responsibility for helping them learn and become good people and a sense of compassion.

Good character, sense of ethics and personal discipline.

Ability to work with others and to build good relationships within the educational instructions and community.

Although the qualities listed above are needed in each individual teacher, teaching is not practiced most effectively as an individual activity. The teacher is always functioning as part of a social network, either with his or her students or within the school community. MEANING OF TEACHER EDUCATION: Teacher Education related to the development of teacher proficiency and competence which enable the teacher to meet the requirement of the profession and face the challenges in the profession. It means the acquisition of that knowledge, skills and ability which helps a teacher to discharge his professional duties and responsibilities effectively and efficiently. Teacher Education includes three aspects i.e. teaching skills, pedagogy and professional skills. Teaching kills comprises of different techniques, approaches and strategies that helps the teacher for planning and imparting instruction, providing appropriate motivations, reinforcing and conducting effective student assessment. Teacher Education has three phases i.e Pre-service teacher education, Induction phase and In-service Teacher Education. Pre-service Teacher Education means education of teachers before they enter into service as teacher. During this period of teacher education programmes, teaching practices goes side by side, while they are getting knowledge about theory papers. Induction phase of training is designed to make newly appointed teachers familiar with practices and activities of the institution where they are appointed. In-service teacher education is the education a teacher receives after he has entered to teaching profession. His job continues well only if he continues his studies every day. There is need of more and more knowledge, more and more education for making him a better teacher. NEED OF TEACHER EDUCATION: Various commissions and committees appointed by Central and State Govern-

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International Education & Research Journal [IERJ]

Research Paper

E-ISSN No : 2454-9916 | Volume : 3 | Issue : 7 | July 2017

ments in recent decades have emphasized the need for quality teacher education suited to the needs of the educational systems. The Secondary Education Commission (1952-53) observed that a major factor responsible for the educational reconstruction at the secondary stage is teachers’ professional training. The Education Commission (1964-66) stressed that a sound programme of professional education of teachers is essential for the qualitative improvement of education. Educating all children well depends not only on ensuring that teacher have the necessary knowledge and skills to carry out their work, but also that they take responsibility for seeing that all children reach high levels of learning and that they act accordingly.

Even the summer institutes being run with the help of UGC and NCERT are not able to deliver the goods. Ÿ

The knowledge and skill acquired by a teacher during his training period cannot keep him an excellent teacher all his life. No attention is paid on inservice training. It remains neglected.

Inadequate Empirical Research: The teacher education programmes have not been properly studied by undertaking any systematic research.

In most of the states teacher education is still being run by the fee collected from pupil-teachers. While the share of state grant is too much small. Most of the institutions charge more rupees from pupil-teachers at the time of admission. Self-financing institutions charge what they feel like. There is a pathetic indifference in public sector institutions and commercialization in private sector.

There is imbalance in supply and demand between regions, geographical areas and subject specializations which results into acute unemployment of quality teachers.

Quality Crisis: There are problems of quality perception, quality scaling and quality differentiations in teacher education. There are wide gap and it is widening day by day.

All the skills such as life skills, Techno-pedagogic skills, Teacher-savvy skills, Info-savvy skills, Emotional skills, Human development skills, spiritual skills are poorly integrated in Teacher Education.

Merit is destroyed due to mismatches between Teacher Educators and Teacher trainees.

Over growing establishment: Establishment of overgrown enrolment in most of the teacher education programme. But at the same time there is uneven distribution of the teacher education institutions.

Incompatible modes of education: There is little parity among various modes of education, such as distance mode, e-mode and face-to-face mode.

Value erosion among the students and youth are matter of concern today. There is increased deterioration of respect for teachers in the society.

The Ministry of Education document “Challenge of Education: A policy Perspective” (1985) has mentioned, teacher performance is the most crucial input in the field of education. Whatever policies may be laid down, in the ultimate analysis these have to be implemented by teachers as much through their personal example as through teaching learning process. The teacher is required to acquire adequate knowledge, skills, interest and attitudes towards the teaching profession. The teachers work has become more complicated and technical in view of the new theories of psychology, philosophy, sociology, Modern India and materials. The teacher can be made proficient with well planned, imaginative pre-service and in-service training programme. A competent and well prepared teacher can be instrumental in enhancing the quality of teaching and learning. The general ability to solve professional problems may be regarded as a competency. In a classroom setting teacher competency depends greatly on his knowledge and mastery of different subjects and skills in using pedagogical practices. In addition teacher’s attitudes towards children, their level of motivation, interest and commitment and ability to interact with parents and community members also contributes to and influences the quality of teaching learning process. Teacher’s level of competency in turn depends largely on per-service training and in-service training. CONCEPT OF QUALITY TEACHER EDUCATION: Though Quality is a relative term but it can be defined with the help of its basic indicators. The quality teacher education programme can very well be understood through a conceptual analysis of its three basic components like input, process and output. Quality input in teacher education includes quality teachers having sound theoretical knowledge and pedagogical skills, attractive and well equipped building, availability of standard teaching learning materials and aids, well equipped library, need based and relevant curriculum and meritorious teacher trainees having the proper aptitude for teaching. Quality process in teacher education programme is concerned with the proper method of transacting the curriculum, practical based training with constructive feedback system and democratic teacher-student interaction system. The quality output aspect is judged in terms of pedagogical skills, personal characteristic and enriched teaching aptitude of the pupil teachers. It is almost impossible to impact quality teacher education in the absence of a sweet coordination among all these elements. SOME MAJOR PROBLEMS IN TEACHER EDUCATION: The curriculum of teacher education is defective. The students are not exposed to the realities of school and community. Internship, practice of teaching, practical activities and supplementary educational activities are not paid proper attention. Pupil-teacher do not utilize the knowledge earned by them during training in actual situations. Thus the utility of training becomes doubtful. There are mismatches between the subject and pedagogy. The supervisory organization for practice teaching is neglected.

Teacher educators use the traditional method of instruction, lecturing and dictating of notes. They have no planned and systematic awareness and control over the instructional technology.

Defects of selection procedure lead to deterioration of the quality of teachers.

Negative attitude of pupil-teacher: Teacher want to obtain the degree anyhow which can facilitate them in getting employment. The present teacher trainees are aimlessly entering in the teacher training institution to get certificates.

Lack of proper facilities: Many teacher education institutions are being run in rented buildings without any facility for an experimental school or laboratory, library and other equipments. The various laboratories of teacher education institutions i.e Science laboratory, Psychology Lab, Guidance and counselling lab, Educational technology lab, computer lab are either not there or are mostly in very bad state.

Isolation of teacher education: According to Kothari Commission, the isolation of teacher education has three forms: - Isolation from literary life of universities, Isolation from colleges and Isolation form one another.

There is lack of facilities for the professional growth of teacher educators.

MEASURES FOR IMPROVING QUALITY OF TEACHER EDUCATION: Ÿ Reorganization of Course: The ratio of theory and practical work should be studied and a special programme should be developed for recording various types of the practical work required in school. The supervisory organization for practice teaching should aim at bringing improvement in the instructional activity of student teachers. Changes in course duration, weightage in theory, practice teaching, micro teaching, project work, community work should be emphasized. Ÿ

Innovations: A teacher education department should conduct special innovative programme in the following directions – seminars, combining of seminars and discussion with lectures, team teaching, panel discussion and project sponsored by the faculty members for improvement of learning in various spheres

Development of positive attitude among pupil-teacher: Training should be made useful, attractive and lively so that their negative attitude can be changed. The college of education should be equipped with facilities for organizing various types of activities such as daily assembly programmes, community living, social work, library organization and other curricular activities which promote democratic spirit of mutual appreciation and fellow feeling.

Removal of isolation of Teacher Education: Kothari Commission has given important suggestions for eradicating isolation form universities, from schools and from one another.

Unnecessary expansion of teacher education should be stopped. The institutions of inferior quality should be closed down. The minimum educational qualifications of the candidates for appointment as teachers in training institutions should be raised. The central and state government should increase their education budgets and should give necessary grants to teacher education institution. The institutions which charge additional fee from pupilteachers should be immediately closed down. Able, honest and devoted teachers should be appointed in teacher education institutions and those indulging in contrary conduct should be punished.

Emphasis should be given on in-service teacher education.

To widen the scope for teacher student interaction group discussions, demonstrations, seminars, symposium, field trips, debates, essay competition,

International Education & Research Journal [IERJ]

Research Paper

E-ISSN No : 2454-9916 | Volume : 3 | Issue : 7 | July 2017

role playing activities may be organized by teacher training institutions by inviting resource persons either form within the institution or from outside. Ÿ

Open and distance learning can be strategically employed in continuing professional development of teachers particularly within a view to overcoming the barriers of physical distance, online support and two way audio-video communications.

Evaluation and monitoring should be an integral part of teacher education programme both in pre and in-service training programme to know the strength, weakness and outcomes of the programme. Renovations and experiments should be promoted for improving the quality of teacher education programme.

Good research work keeping the Indian perspective in mind, original research should be conducted in the field of education and teacher education.

Lot of training material is available both with the national and state level institution. It should be distributed among teachers and teacher educators for self-learning and their growth.

The state government should take adequate provision for funds for teacher education department. Special assistance may be given for running an experimental school and holding of practice teaching session in various schools. The government should provide fund for infrastructure facility in the teacher education institutions.

Proper selection procedure for B.Ed: 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 taken (c) Test in School subjects should be done (d) Test of language should be taken (e) Test of intelligence should be administered and (f) Aptitude and interest and attitude inventory should be administered (g) A well-directed guidance service should be provided.

Spreading sense of ethical values in the teacher education.

Intensive use of ICT for school education. ICT can be imaginatively drawn upon for professional development academic support of the pre-service and in-service training.

CONCLUSION: The teacher should not only be a communicator but also a mobiliser, motivator and coordinator. The task of brining qualitative change of the teacher education system in itself is a huge and challenging one .Quality issues in teacher education revolve around the quality of infrastructure and support services, opportunity time, teacher characteristics and teacher motivation, pre-service and in-service education of teachers, curriculum and teaching-learning materials, classroom processes, pupil evaluation, monitoring and supervision etc. The reconstruction of teacher education curricula has become a pressing need of the hour. It calls for revolutionary changes. There should be open forums and public debates on teacher education policy rather than leaving it to some selected committees and commissions. REFERENCES: 1.

Attri, A.K. (2013). Teacher Education Programme, some challenges and concern, Teacher Education in India, Contemporary problems and prospects, pp.73-84, ISBN:978-81-7541-683-3

Barwal, S. (2013). Crucial Issues and Emerging Concerns in Teacher Edcuation, Teacher Education in India, Contemporary problems and prospects, pp.104-117, ISBN:978-81-7541-683-3

Goel, D.R. and Goel, C. (2012), Teacher Education Scenario in India: Current problems and concerns, MIER Journals of Educational Studies, Trends and Practices, November,2012, Vol.2, No.2, pp.231-242

Imam, Ashraf. (2011). Quality and excellence in teacher education: issues and challenges in India, Zenith International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, Vol.1, Issue.7, November,2011, http://www.zenithresearch.org.in>pdf>nov

NCTE (2009) National curriculum Framework for Teacher Education, 2009, NCERT, New Delhi, pp.11-21

NCERT (2005) National curriculum Framework, NCERT, New Delhi, pp.107-114

Singh, J.R (2012). Measures for improving quality of Teacher Education, Education India Journal: A Quarterly Refered Journal of Dialouges on Education, ISSN 22782435, Vol.1, Issue-3, August 2012. http://www.educationindiajournal.org>journal

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