Knowledge
Teacher training in India is a long running joke
Whether teachers are entering the education system via the pre-service training route or the in-service training route there are big lacunae that need to be addressed if the overall education quality has to improve in India.
When a candidate is studying to be a teacher from the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) centre, whether to earn her B.Ed or M.Ed degree, she cannot even anticipate what awaits her in a low-cost government school classroom.
Firstly, students in the class are at completely different academic levels, and then many of the children may turn out to be first-generation learners who may not get any academic support at home. Cases of high absenteeism and other circumstances like low income of parents and lack of proper nutrition will also show adverse effects on the performance of many able students. The fresh teacher may not be trained to address such classroom realities.
To help come out on top of these issues, the teacher attends different trainings but is there a professional development program that can help better her knowledge and skills?
This example is as close to reality as it possibly can be. A recent carried out on ‘Primary education in India,’ states that a teacher’s ability, knowledge and her pedagogy is one of the most important factors that determine the learning outcomes of children. The education system in India has worked hard to improve its access and reach but until there is a significant improvement in governance and teachers training, things are unlikely to improve.
Let us look closely at teacher training in India today. Firstly, Pre-service education which prepares students for a teaching career and secondly, in-service teacher-training that is backed by the government through the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) or NGOs and social enterprises. Both these models though well designed have fundamental implementation problems.
Pre-service teacher education
As has already been pointed out by NCERT, the degree programs for aspiring teachers do not give sufficient weightage to classroom realities. The duration of the program itself is so short that it doesn’t allow learning through self-reflection, understanding social realities, engaging in shared learning and gaining practical experience.
The curriculum and program structure too have their fair share of criticism, markedly that it only provides basic skills and assumes that the teachers will be able to apply their learning to any context. Most importantly, the curriculum fails to teach the candidate how children learn, i.e. the psychological aspects that contribute to better comprehension.
There is no mentorship program for student-teachers which should simply be not acceptable. Students can learn how to prepare lessons, manage a class and deal with common problems in the classroom simply by observing or seeking mentors guidance. It will also provide a much-needed network of support to trainee-teachers.
In-service teacher education
In-service teacher education on the other hand, is an altogether different ball game. Although, SSA allows 20 days of in-service teacher training a year, however scant attention is paid to the desired outcomes of these trainings. Additionally, there is no standardization of the course across the country.
The 2012 Verma Commission report pointed out that 90 % of teacher education bodies were private, indirectly reflecting that the priorities of the government lay elsewhere– at least in the sphere of pre-service education.
Despite the SSA allocating the highest proportion of funds (64 %) to funding teachers in 2013-2014, teacher performance has not significantly improved – stressing the need for greater investment in and the redesigning of in-service teacher training program.
CSR spends on education also reflects the same trend. A 2014 CSR in Education by Samhita clearly shows a marked skew in the priorities of the 100 companies with the largest CSR budgets in India.
An astonishingly low 15 % of these companies had a program for the capacity building of educators. This could have happened for 3 reasons. Firstly, companies seem to be allocating funds to areas that the government is pushing for through the Right to Education Act (RTE), which itself has been criticized for focusing in infrastructure and not enough on learning outcomes. The research also shows that companies are responding to demands made by schools which generally revolve around infrastructure support. Thirdly, training teachers is a medium-to- long-term investment which may not fit in companies overall scheme of CSR.
Through this scenario, there is one sustainable initiative that has the potential to bring about change. It is, Muktangan which follows an ‘integrated teacher education’ approach in its 3-year (pre-service) program aligned to NCTE norms which are similar to the first year of a Diploma in Education (D.Ed) program. The program is designed to provide teachers theoretical and practical training, as well as regular in-service teacher training. The program focuses on skills such as school leadership, IT skills, English proficiency and also covers pedagogy requirements for each subject.
Investing in teacher’s capabilities is probably the most important way of bringing about a much-needed improvement in student learning and needs active support from the private sector. According to Samhita’s CSR in Education report, 75 % of companies with the largest CSR budgets invested in creating infrastructure and scholarships in the education space. While this is critical, it is equally important to support other aspects of education, like teacher training, and work to fill in these gaps. Implementing programs that tackle multiple issues within the sector will enhance the value of a company’s CSR programs and significantly improve the current state of education in India.