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Teacher Education
Large Demand
- “It is impossible to find the type
of teacher I want for my school”
- “ India needs about 7 - 8 million
primary/secondary teachers, versus the 3 - 4 million available today”
Low Quality
- “ Teachers are the missing link”
- “ The real tragedy of Indian education
is the poor quality of its teachers”
- “ Generally 70 -8-% of Indian teachers
are bad”
- “ The teaching profession has become
“ a profession of last resort”
- “ Teacher training institutions
have gone down woefully”
- “ Rural education? What’s that?”
Low Skill Transfer
- “ There is very little cross-fertilisation
among teachers”
- “ How can we transfer successful
practices among teachers?”
- “ Vikram Sarabhai demanded that
every scientist sent abroad for training had to produce five more
like him”
- “ We can learn from training and
development practices in Industry”
Money Driver
- “ A powerful force in Indian education
is the parallel education system”
- “ Capable teachers become tuition
mongers in the major cities”
Compensation
- “ Why should we deny a teacher a
normal life?”
Teacher Education
- Lack of dedicated, quality teachers
is the major constraint in Indian education
- Teaching has become a profession
of last resort, a stop-gap to moving on to a more financially rewarding
profession.
- Younger teachers appear to be less
committed than older teachers.
- Even the best schools find it difficult
to attract and retain quality teachers. ‘Quality’ is a function
of a number of factors:
- Pedagogical skills i.e. teaching
methods and techniques
- Communication skills
- Behavioral and classroom management
skills
- Attitude and commitment
- Ability to cross-train
- Initiative and leadership
- Sensitivity to the community and
environment
- 50% or more of the approximately
10,000 teachers teaching at “good” Indian schools are ‘deadwood’.
The situation will worsen as many good and experienced teachers
near retirement. Replacing them will be difficult if not impossible
without effective training and retraining programmes for teachers.
- The standards of teacher training
institutions have declined precipitously. Current teacher education
practices are based almost entirely on (outmoded) theory. There
are no in-service programmes in teacher education or opportunities
for teachers to update their knowledge and methodology.
- Retraining teachers is more difficult
than training first time teachers There is minimal skill transfer
among teachers:
- Interpersonal rivalry often inhibits
or prevents effective cross-training.
- There is not enough proactive exchange
and cross-fertilisation between schools.
- Success transfer as a process is
not studied and practiced.
- Although compensation levels have
increased, most teachers feel they are underpaid.
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