Major Issues and Problems of
Teacher Education
KEYWORDS:;
Poor Quality
of Teaching; Absence of Supervision, Monitoring and Performance evaluation of Trainers;
Linkages between Institutions, Accreditation in teacher education; Privatization,
Globalization and Autonomy Teacher Education;
Ø Short Duration of Courses
The duration
of teacher preparation courses is short in comparison to other countries in the
world. “There has been a constant observation that the duration of primary
school teaching certificate is far below the norm of other developing countries
in the world.
Ø Generally, Minimum Teaching
Certificate range from 12 to 16 years of both general education and teacher
training programs. The norm is, therefore, around 14 years minimum education in
most of the countries in the world”. (National Education Policy 1998- 2010).
The short
duration of training and lengthy syllabus, with unnecessary content, was a
common complaint of teacher educators at all levels. Excluding summer and winter vacations and
other national and local holidays the one year courses are actually of 9 months
duration which includes 4 weeks of teaching practice. The remaining 32 weeks or
just 8 months, which is insufficient time to study the eleven subjects in PTC
and CT courses.
The situation
with B.Ed. courses is not much different. There is little scope for improvement
unless more time is allocated for learning teaching skills, teaching practice,
and course durations are extended.
The trainees
are not involved in any of the activities or practical work suggested in the
syllabus. The trainee teachers teach the way they were taught in the class
through dictation.
Poor Quality of Teaching
The teaching
in the PTC, CT and B.Ed. classrooms is lecturing and dictation. Teaching
techniques like group work, problem solving, and activity approach are lectured
about, not practiced by the trainers.
The curricula
in science and methods of teaching science at PTC and CT level recommend
practical work and experiments. The majority schools have science laboratories,
but the almirahs were locked, and the apparatus and the work tables covered in
dust.
The students
do not maintain journals of practical work and lesson planning.
All the
colleges had libraries but library study was rarely integrated into the
learning program and students show no interest in library books.
The majority
of institutions have “attached practicing schools” which are often insufficient
due to the large number of trainees particularly in the B.Ed. colleges.
Government
schools are often used as practicing schools. The supervision of teaching
practice and guidance to the trainee teacher is often brief and mostly just an
initial in the lesson notebook by the supervisor.
Peer
observation= observation of a
trainee’s lesson by fellow trainees, recording comments on the lesson in a
lesson observation notebook and later discussion of the comments with the
trainee, is an effective technique used in training teachers which is not
practiced in most teacher training
institutes.
Absence of Supervision, Monitoring
and Performance evaluation of Trainers
There is no
guidance and evaluation of a freshly appointed teacher trainer. The fresh
appointee is often a secondary teacher with a B.Ed. or M.Ed. with no practical
teaching experience or knowledge of dealing with adult classrooms. The trainers
of primary teachers (PTC courses) have never experienced teaching primary
school children.
There is no
system of Performance Appraisal of the teacher educators relevant to their
jobs. There is no job description. Promotions to higher grades or higher post
are on the basis of seniority rather than on the basis of performance.
Physical
Facilities and Equipment
- The classroom furniture in all training institutions and practice schools is of traditional design. Light movable furniture is required for practicing activity approach and group-work.
- Science labs need curriculum relevant equipment and workshop tools for creating low-cost teaching materials.
l Lack of audio visual Aids in
teaching training institutes. Teaching material of daily classroom use such as
charts, maps, globes, models are in short supply in most institutions.
- Lack of school building
- Lack of trained teachers
- Student teacher ratio in teacher training colleges and class
- Admission criteria
- guidance and counseling
- Evaluation system
- Lack of funds
No Feedback Mechanism,
the concept of
“quality control” is totally absent from the system. The short duration
courses, the lecture style delivery, the short and unsupervised teaching
practice, the absence of supervision, and the monitoring and performance appraisal
of trainers, are a combination of tragic factors that plan to produce low
quality of professional teachers
Linkages between Institutions,
The meetings
of heads of institutions with the directors of umbrella organization are held
usually once or twice a year for the purpose of discussing schedules —
admissions, semesters, examinations, fees and settling other administrative
matters. Academic issues are never on the agenda.
There are no
meetings of Heads of Institutions solely for the purpose of discussing
academics. There are no academic linkages between the 20 Provincial Bureaus or
the Provincial PITES. At the national level there is a Technical Panel of
Teacher Education that provides a very weak and ineffective linkage.
Standards in Teacher Education
l Accreditation in teacher
education is a system for ensuring the Standard and quality of academic
programs offered and graduates produced by teacher education institutions. To
set the academic quality and profile of the teacher to be produced by the
institutions. NACTE has adapted International practices in accreditation of
teacher education programs and indigenized it for evaluating the standard of
teacher education in Pakistan.
The National
Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NACTE) has developed a set of
eight standards relevant to the various areas and activities of a teacher
education program named as the National Standards for Accreditation of Teacher
Education Programs (NSATEP). These standards serve as the foundation for
internal academic evaluation (Self-evaluation) by the program and external
academic audit by NACTE. These standards relate to:
- Conceptual Framework,
- Mission, Vision, program goals and objectives Curriculum and Instruction.
- Assessment and Evaluation System.
- Physical Infrastructure, Academic Facilities and Learning Resources.
- Human Resource.
- Finance and Management.
- Research and Scholarship.
- Community Links and Outreach.
To
operationalize the standards into observables, each standard were divided into
elements with further splitting into operational indicators. The total number
of such indicators is 152 STANDARD. These
indicators were later processed to set-up tools to measure the level of
attainment of a program.
Admission Policies and Procedures in
Teacher Education
Privatization, Globalization and
Autonomy Teacher Education
PRIVATIZATION
l At the time of independence Pakistan declared itself
as a democratic state. Initially public
sector initiated and developed the
education system in Pakistan, But the eighties witnessed the inefficient
working of the state owned enterprises and as a reaction the wave of
privatization has spread in Pakistan,
Concept of Privatization
Privatization implies induction of
private ownership, management and control of organizations. Privatization means
the deregulation of government control and it refers to expansion of private
sector and reduction of public sector. It also means that areas
Reserved for the public sector will be
opened to the private sector. The shift towards privatization reduces the role
of the government and increases the role of the private, cooperative and local
government. The areas of shift are mainly decision making and responsibility of
money and administration.
Applied to the education sector,
privatization can be seen as part of the wider reform of the public sector.
Education is both a private and social investment. It is therefore the
responsibility of both the individual including the student, his family and the
society which includes the community and the state.
Privatization is management by private
sector with total absence of government intervention. Such institutions
generate their own funds through higher fees, user charges and full use of
resources. They survive on the philosophy that they do not have to pay for
those who can pay.
l Privatization of higher education has emerged in
several forms and types in the recent decade in Pakistan
Ø Privatization within government higher education
institutions takes place in the form of introducing self-financing courses
within government institutions.
Ø Converting government aided private institution in to
private self-financing institution.
Ø Allowing expandingself-financing private institution
with recognition and also without recognition, which may be termed as
commercial private higher education institutions?
Factors
Responsible for Privatization of HigherEducation (Need for Privatization)
v Need for competitive
efficiency
v Growth in population
v Financial burden on
government:
v Education is an Economic
good
v Rapid growth of school
education:
v Fulfilling the need for
skilled manpower
v curbing of corruption In
Public sector
v Technological developments
Advantages of Privatization: Privatization will enhance:
• Decentralization of educational
institutions.
•
Innovativeness in teaching and evaluation.
• Competition in institutions for
quality.
• Quality teacher education and
training.
• Shaping of the teacher education
curriculum according to global, national and local needs.
• Utility of human and physical
resources in proper way.
Disadvantages
and fears in Privatization of Education:
Ø Privatization
will badly affect the poor
Ø Privatization
will badly affect the quality of teacher education in Pakistan
GLOBALIZATION
The closing decade of 20th century saw
major social, political and economic transformations on a global level. The
developments, combined with increasingly rapid advances in the nature of and
impact of information and communication technologies have had a powerful
influence on all nations, societies and cultures worldwide.
Concept of Globalization:
Globalization is a much talked about
term today and has become a phenomena, which is greatly affecting the society
in general and different nations in particular. Globalization is the
integration of economic, political and cultural systems and trends
Across the world for economic growth,
prosperity and democratic freedom.
Globalization means the world beyond
borders where the activity of an individual can affect the whole world with the
help of technology, that could not be restrict by such criteria as geography,
religion, gender, age. Anything or anybody can have a worldwide impact. Globalization
seeks to deal with relations that go beyond the confines of the nation state or
country boundaries.
There are many challenges before the
teaching profession. Firstly, teachers need to radically adapt to the new
skills, techniques, methods and demands and secondly a change in the mind set
to take up new responsibilities. It is only then that the teacher can be
Professionalized. In order to prepare
the new age teachers the system of teacher education has to adapt new
challenges faced by the system. Systemic changes have to be made to prepare the
global teacher. These could be in the form of infrastructure,
facilities,selection, recruitment and retention of competent human resources,
adopting and training in new technologies, and upgrading the curriculum.
• Good salaries for teachers to attract
brilliant minds
• Good working conditions
• Flexible hours
• Constant training in use of new
methods of teaching, counseling, meeting curricular demands, computers, finding
and interpreting information
• Autonomy to teachers in classroom
management, teaching strategies, arrangement of furniture and work spaces.
• Standardize the skills and their
certification, to be acquired by a teacher enabling it to be used world over.
Autonomy
Concept of
Autonomy:
Autonomy is an attitude of the mind
which can be equated with critical intelligence, independent mindedness, a
determination and think things out for one self. Autonomy consists of one’s own
independent judgments freely choosing
among alternatives and governing one’s own action and attitudes in the light of
one’s own thinking.
Etymologically, there are two features
of autonomy viz. the nature of self i.e. ‘autos’ and the kind of norm and rule
–‘nomos’. Put together autonomy would thus mean adopting for oneself “self norms”
“self governance” and “responsibility”. Autonomy thus
introduces the idea of ‘self direction’
as well as recognition of norms or principles with which the autonomous person
governs himself.
Autonomy therefore, essentially means
the relative independence of an individual in guiding and regulating his or her
own conduct without any external control.
Autonomy in Education:
The concept of autonomy in education is
a structural solution intended to provide an enabling environment to improve
and strengthen the teaching learning process. Autonomy is the unrestrained
freedom of action within the established norms of the institution. In the field
of education the feeling of freedom infiltrate to the each and every academic
unit, creating in teachers and students a sense of involvement in the pursuit
of learning. Teachers in colleges and departments are then to actively be
associated with four fundamental questions of what to teach, how to teach, whom
to teach and how to evaluate?
In education autonomy can relate to
budgets, appointments, students intake, curriculum, degrees awarded, quality of
teaching and research. Autonomy provides an enabling environment, to improve
and strengthen teaching-learning process. A decentralizedmanagement culture can
encourage autonomy within the environment. However, no institution can have
effective institutional or academic autonomy without financial autonomy.
