Why Teacher Education Is Of Utmost Importance To A Growing Nation Like India

As Print, 1993, rightly puts it: a professional teacher must be familiar with the concepts associated with curriculum, because curriculum is the very substance of schooling. Therefore, all teachers must possess the knowledge of curriculum, the process involved in developing one, implementing it effectively and be able to check the effectiveness of the curriculum. Curriculum issues and substantive matters of schooling can be resolved only if teachers are able to tackle the following questions efficiently:

• What to teach?
• How to teach?
• When to teach?
• What is the impact of teaching?

If teacher education in a country is able to equip teachers to solve these questions effectively, then the professionally equipped teachers will be able to develop, adapt and modify curriculum content, pedagogy and assessment to suit the needs and aspirations of the stakeholders including society.

What to teach and when to teach?

According to Carl, 2009, the first principle in academic Curriculum Planning is the identification of the goals with respect to the learner, society, subject disciplines, philosophy and learning psychology. The learner’s characteristics and needs must be analysed in terms of physical, psychosocial, intellectual and moral development, when designing a curriculum. Moreover, the needs of the society like economic crisis, value conflicts, environmental pollution and racial discrimination must alsobe taken into consideration. The goal of a curriculum in subject disciplines must encourage the development of intellectual skills or cognitive process, in students along with the subject content. The research and theories of developmental psychologists and teaching theoreticians like Piaget, Dewey, Maslow, Prescott and others should also be studied in depth to enhance feasibility of curriculum and learning.

How to teach?

This embodies all the instructional strategies and learning activities planned by the teacher to implement the content and curriculum. Experience and research indicate that a variety of methods are required for effective learning.

According to Print, teaching-learning strategies can be grouped into: Expository teaching, Interactive teaching, Small group teaching/ discussion, Inquiry based teaching, Individualisation and Models of reality.

What is the impact of teaching?

During lesson planning, decisions must also be made about the designs for the evaluation procedures and techniques to be used for Individual, Formative and Summative evaluation of the learners. This will provide valuable information about the attainment and progress of individual and group of learners, with respect to the achievement of the expected learning outcomes.

Moving in the correct direction…

Hence, it is imperative that the 21st century teacher must be aware of all these concepts and must be able to use them judiciously, in the appropriate circumstances. The recent ‘National Education Policy 2019’, is rightly moving in this direction, by laying down policies and procedures for training our teachers to achieve the above objective.

‘The National Education Policy 2019’ has clearly stated that by 2030 the 4-year integrated B.ED program will become the minimum degree qualifications for all school teachers. However, the Institutions can also design a 2-year B.Ed. program for outstanding students who have completed their bachelor’s degree in a specialized subject and wish to pursue a teaching career.

This policy not only aims to improve the integrity and credibility of the Teacher Educational institutions by laying down specific guidelines for teacher education but it will also help the country realise the dream of having a holistic, experiential, integrated, student centered educational system that helps improve creativity, critical thinking and problem solving skills of our young learners to equip them for the ever-changing employment and global ecosystems.

If teacher education in a country is able to equip teachers to solve these questions effectively, then the professionally equipped teachers will be able to develop, adapt and modify curriculum content, pedagogy and assessment to suit the needs and aspirations of the stakeholders including society.

Saleena Pannikote’s tryst with teaching began immediately after she completed her Master’s in Chemistry. Although she tried her hand at various professions, her experience as a young educationist and the adrenalin rush at the end of a lesson well done, is what encouraged her to continue with her career. Her passion for mentoring teachers began when she was pleasantly surprised that she was able to motivate young teachers to come up with outstanding ideas and lessons, by encouraging them to look deeply into and around themselves, all the time giving them hints for improvement. Today after a long 17 years as a teacher, writer and teacher educator, she is continuing her education at the Murdoch University, Dubai. She is a resident of Dubai for the past 11 years and feels lucky to be a part of the positive changes in the educational field here, due to the visions and aspirations of its leaders.