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Education
Upgrading teacher training
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The curriculum structure, course content and the scheme of examination in the two-year B.Ed. programme have been developed after an in-depth study of the NCTE document on curriculum framework on quality education at the regional and national levels by the NCERT. This is an alternative to the existing one-year B.Ed. programme.
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THE NATIONAL Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has been assigned various types of specific and comprehensive tasks covering almost all aspects of teacher education and school education. Quality improvement in teacher education is one of the prime assignments before the Council.
The National Policy on Education (1986) and its revised version (1992) states that the status of teachers reflects the socio-cultural ethos of a society. It is said "No pupil can rise above the level of its teachers." The government and the community should endeavour to create conditions, which will help, motivate and inspire teachers on constructive and creative lines. Teachers should have the freedom to innovate. They should be able to devise appropriate methods of communication and activities relevant to the needs and capabilities of and the concerns of the community.
On teacher education, the policy makes very significant statement _ "Teacher education is a continuous process, and its pre-service and in-service components are inseparable. As the first step, the system of teacher education will be overhauled." In this direction, District Institutes of Education (DIETs), College of Teacher Education (CTEs) and Institutes of Advanced Studies in Education (IASEs) have been established to upgrade teacher training institutions. There were demands by teachers, teacher educators and educationists to have a separate authority for teacher education to maintain quality. In this direction, the establishment of a statutory, the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) is indeed laudable. The NCTE has a two-fold function.
The first of this can be termed regularity, focusing on ensuring infrastructure and processing norms for teacher training in the institutions. NCTE also has a say in the methods and procedures of admission to teacher training institutions and procedures for recruitment of school teachers. One of its major assignments is to ensure that all necessary steps are taken to prevent commercialisation of teacher education. "Secondly the NCTE's task is to provide professional and academic support to institutions preparing teachers for all the stages of school education and also for teacher educators, through surveys, studies, innovations and researches."
"In recent years both school education and society have witnessed unprecedented technological advancements, communication revolutions, periodical reforms in school curriculum, introduction of competency based and vaue oriented education, adoption of Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL) strategy as envisaged by National Policy on Education (1986, modified in 1992), major reforms in textbooks-cum-workbooks and other teaching-learning aids, promoting activity-based and joyful learning, introduction of self-learning and group learning activities besides teacher directed learning, offering non-formal and alternative education systems, initiatives like Operation Blackboard (OBB), Special Orientation Programme for Teachers (SOPT), Promoting Primary and Elementary Education (PROPEL) and a host of other developments.
Clearly all these and many other changes occurring in quick succession in school and society, coupled with new challenges to be faced in the initial decades of the 21st Century, which also makes the dawn of a third millennium, have profound implications for the renewal of curricula, content and processes of teacher education. If teacher education has to remain effective and functional, its curriculum and related aspects should be revitalised and renewed immediately."
Even though one-year B.Ed. model has been in existence for many years in our country, needless to say, it does suffer from many lacunas, which need immediate improvement. The existing one-year B.Ed. model has the following shortcoming:
a. Duration of one academic year is inadequate to meet the challenges of new thinking in teacher education.
b. Teaching practice/ Internship in Teaching provided is not sufficient to inculcate all teaching skills.
c. Theoretical and practical orientation offered is insufficient to meet the challenges of professional preparation.
d. Research component is sadly and badly missing.
Recently NCTE has brought out an excellent document titled NCTE Curriculum Framework 1998, which highlights major issues being faced by the education system. The curriculum framework provides full autonomy and flexibility to teacher training institutions. It provides only a framework and leaves the rest to university and institutions. They need to take note of the contexts and concerns of the community and the student teachers.
In order to unfold learners' potentialities, enlargement of their competencies and transformation of their interests, attitudes and values, effective teacher education programme is a must and this may not be achieved with the present one-year B.Ed. model, and therefore NCTE recommended for instituting a two-year B.Ed. (secondary) model. The recommendation of NCTE was examined carefully and debated by NCERT and finally decided to introduce two-year B.Ed. (secondary) model in four Regional Institutes of Education located at Mysore, Ajmer, Bhopal and Bhubaneswar from the 1999 academic session.
The specific objectives of the two-year (four semesters) B.Ed. (secondary) course are to: enable the prospective teachers to understand the nature, purpose and philosophy of secondary education; and develop among teachers an understanding of the psychology of their pupils, to help them to understand the process of socialisation; to equip them to acquire competencies relevant to stage specific pedagogy, curriculum development, its transaction and evaluation; to enable them to make pedagogical analysis of the subjects they teach at the secondary stage, develop skills for guidance and counselling and foster creative thinking among pupils for reconstruction of knowledge. It also aims at acquainting them with factors and forces affecting educational system and classroom situation and to utilise community resources as educational inputs. In addition it aims to develop communication skills and use of modern information technology for school purposes, develop aesthetic sensibilities, and acquaint them with research in education, including action research.
The curriculum structure, course content and the scheme of examination of the two-year B.Ed. programme have been developed after an in-depth study of the NCTE document on curriculum framework on quality education at the regional and national levels by NCERT. This is an alternative model to the existing one-year B.Ed. programme.
The B.Ed. course is of four-semester duration with two semesters each year and each semester consisting of 16 weeks of instruction. The terminal examinations for each semester will be held one week after the completion of the instructions for that semester. Students admitted to the B.Ed. course will have to study theory as well as to undergo practical work in three different parts namely (Foundation Course); optional courses (subjects of specialisation); and professional education as per the structure and scheme of examination already prepared by NCERT. The medium of instruction of the entire course is in English.
The introduction of two-year B.Ed. programme since 1999 academic year in four Regional Institutes of Education fulfils the need for revision and renewal of teacher education curricula at the secondary level. The purpose of this alternative B.Ed. model is to help teachers become professionally well-equipped; improve their motivation and effectiveness in their professional performance in the classroom, in the school and the community at large.
N.N. PRAHALLADA
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