Special Report

Clearing the mess in teacher education

The original sin of failure to build sufficient teacher training institutions is being compounded by the imposition of under-qualified and untrained teachers upon the school system. Almost half of the country’s 4.7 million elementary school teachers have not studied beyond class XII. Summiya Yasmeen reports

Suddenly education of india’s 450 million children (below 18 years of age) — the largest child population in the world — hitherto a peripheral blip, is beginning to loom large on the radar screens of the Central and state governments. Education — particularly secondary schooling — is all set to receive a belated but massive boost in the Eleventh Plan period (2007-12) with 20 percent of the plan outlay (Rs.36,44,147 crore) allocated for education. On December 19, the National Development Council — a collegium of all state chief ministers — unanimously approved the Plan. Earlier in his annual address to the nation on Independence Day (August 15) prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh announced a slew of new projects in the education sector including 6,000 high quality schools, 30 Central universities, 370 colleges in the states, 1,600 ITIs, 10,000 vocational schools and 50,000 skill development centres at an aggregate price (estimated by EducationWorld) of Rs.275,100 crore.

But in the midst of this new official enthusiasm for expanding capacity in primary, secondary, tertiary and vocational education, teacher training and development is likely to emerge as a blindspot of the UPA government and the Eleventh Plan. Even though the approach paper to the Eleventh Plan admits that "teacher training is both inadequate and of poor quality and needs to be expanded and improved," it doesn’t dwell on the subject of augmenting teacher training infrastructure.

Against this backdrop Elementary Education in India: Analytical Report 2005-06, a detailed 422 page study published by the Delhi-based National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), should serve as a wake-up call. EEI 2005-06 confirms that almost half of the country’s 4.7 million elementary school teachers have not studied beyond class XII, while a quarter of them have not studied beyond secondary school i.e. class X. The study, conducted across 35 states and Union territories of India, reveals that a mere 35 percent of teachers in classes I-VIII are graduates, and only 17 percent are postgraduates. Given that almost half of the country’s total school teachers’ force hasn’t studied beyond higher secondary school, and with the teacher-pupil ratio averaging 1:60 (according to the World Bank) and 1:40 (according to the government of India), it’s a moot point where qualified teachers will emerge from to teach in these promised institutions.

Quite clearly the 8 lakh school teachers churned out annually by the country’s 8,000 teacher training colleges aren’t enough. That’s why desperate state governments are already resorting to hiring under-qualified teachers. "Distribution of teachers by educational qualification reveals that 45.34 percent of teachers who impart elementary education in the country’s schools are higher secondary and below school leavers. A few are even below secondary level. Irrespective of the school type, only 0.40 percent of teachers have M.Phil and Ph D degrees," says Arun C. Mehta, author of EEI 2005-06 and professor of education management at NUEPA, Delhi.

Thus the original sin of failure to build sufficient teacher training institutions is being compounded by the imposition of under-qualified and untrained teachers upon the school system. The driving force behind this phenomenon is the overriding objective of attaining higher primary school enrollment. With the target date (2010) of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (Education for All) programme drawing near, the first priority of the Union ministry of human resource development (HRD) and state governments is to meet the target of 100 percent enrollment for all children between six-14 years of age, damn learning outcomes.

"To achieve SSA enrollment targets, state governments have been hiring teachers, paying little attention to their qualifications, training and abilities. In fact government enthusiasm for higher enrollment figures has resulted in abysmal learning outcomes in government schools. For instance in Karnataka most class V government school students don’t possess basic reading and writing skills. Teacher quality and student learning levels are inter-dependent and poorly trained teachers in classrooms means that children receive sub-standard education. Overlooking the quality of teachers inducted in the country’s schools is a very dangerous development," warns Dr. Usha Devi, professor and head of the Centre for Human Resource Development at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore.

The Annual Status of Education Report 2006 (ASER) published by the Mumbai-based NGO Pratham confirms poor learning outcomes in primary education even as gross enrollment has climbed to 95.3 percent. A people’s survey conducted by 20,000 volunteers (mainly college and university students) who visited 549 rural districts with 600 households surveyed in each district, ASER 2006 reveals that over 34 percent of children in classes III to V could not read a class I level text and 35 percent can’t do simple subtraction sums.

The quality of teaching transaction in the country’s 151,000 secondary schools is no better. While state governments mandate the postgraduate B.Ed (bachelor of education) qualification for recruitment of high school teachers, the quality of the one-year B.Ed degree is itself suspect. It’s an open secret that the curriculum delivered in India’s estimated 5,500 B.Ed colleges is of early 20th century vintage — globalisation, liberalisation and the emergence of the internet, notwithstanding.

Thus inadequate teacher training capacity and hasty recruitment of under-qualified teachers is further muddied by a conspicuous failure to update and contemporise the syllabuses and curriculums of the country’s 8,000 teacher training colleges. For this dangerous development which threatens the country’s newly-emergent demographic advantage, most educationists tend to blame the Delhi-based National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE). Constituted by an Act of Parliament (National Council of Teacher Education Act, 1993) in 1995 "to achieve planned and coordinated development of the teacher education system throughout the country, the regulation and proper maintenance of norms and standards in the teacher education system and for matters connected therewith," this apex-level body regulates the estimated 8,000 teacher training colleges which train teachers from the pre-school to higher secondary level.

It is a telling commentary on the quality of planning and research conducted by the 28,000 strong Delhi-based Planning Commission and the Union HRD ministry that until 1995 there were a mere 633 teacher training colleges countrywide. Since then after NCTE was legislated, the number of colleges (approved by NCTE) exploded to 8,000, prompting accusations that the council has indiscriminately licensed teacher training institutions without due attention to quality of programmes, infrastructure provision and qualified faculty, resulting in a steep fall in the quality of even qualified teachers taking charge of the country’s classrooms.

Comments Prof. R. Sethuraman vice-chancellor of Sastra Deemed University, Thanjavur, which offers NCTE approved B.Ed programmes to 88 graduate students: "The major problem is NCTE’s open door policy of granting recognition to private teacher training colleges throughout the academic year, unmindful of the reality that a substantial number of prospective teachers write their examinations and are awarded degrees without attending their course of study even for a single day. It’s also unmindful of the reality that adequately qualified teacher trainers are simply not available and mere B.Eds are teaching B.Eds; that often a single qualified teacher trainer is listed on the faculty of four-ten colleges; that many of the teacher colleges are run in makeshift premises and non-existent buildings."

According to a report of the S. Sathyam Committee, constituted by the HRD ministry in 2004 to probe allegations of corruption in NCTE, regional directors routinely process applications out of turn, and inspection teams which visit applicant teacher training colleges to assess infrastructure and quality of faculty, often clear applications of promoters of questionable credibility, and in some cases have granted approval even to non-existent colleges. The committee in its report says that sums collected by way of application fees (NCTE received approximately 4,000 applications from aspirant teacher training colleges last year, with each applicant paying Rs.40,000 which translates into an income of Rs.16 crore) is kept in a current account without any plans drawn up for income management and expenditure. Most of the funds, intended for upgrading teacher education standards and revision of curriculum, lie unused in NCTE bank accounts.

However the council’s officials are unperturbed by the Sathyam Committee’s report. "NCTE has stipulated stringent eligibility criteria for all new teacher training colleges. Inspection teams comprising respected educationists and teacher educators visit colleges to ascertain and verify all details presented in their applications. There is no question of regional offices granting approval — which takes three-five months — to sub-standard colleges. Even if some colleges offer poor quality teacher training programmes delivered by ill-qualified faculty, market forces will ensure they close shop, given the liberalisation of teacher education in the country. By increasing the supply of teacher training colleges, NCTE has made teacher education accessible and affordable to all," argues Krishna Reddy, regional director of NCTE’s southern office in Bangalore, which received the maximum number of applications (2,000) for permission to promote new teacher training colleges last year.

In anticipation of a massive shortage of primary and secondary teachers in the near future, politicians and bureaucrats with inside information of huge government budgets and schemes for education as well as entrepreneurs with suspect credentials have hopped aboard the rolling teacher training bandwagon. In 2004-05, NCTE’s southern regional office approved the promotion of 185 B.Ed and D.Ed colleges in Karnataka. And in neighbouring Tamil Nadu which had only 22 B.Ed colleges in 2003, the number has risen to over 300.

"NCTE in its present form pays no attention to quality in teacher education. It has been recklessly granting approval to colleges that fail to conform to the basic requirements of a teacher training institution. Although 300 self-financing teacher training colleges have been approved by the council during the past three years, there is an acute shortage of well-qualified, competent teachers in the state. This is because most of these colleges are ill-equipped to offer teacher training of acceptable quality and most of their graduates are unemployable," says D. Kumaran, head of the department of education at Madras University.

According to Kumaran, NCTE’s policy of liberal approval of applications is at odds with the stated objective of the NCTE Act, 1993 which is "planned and coordinated development of the teacher education system throughout the country". While Tamil Nadu has 300 B.Ed colleges and Uttar Pradesh 700 B.Ed and 184 Basic Teacher Training colleges, other states such as Orissa, Sikkim and Meghalaya are under-served. Sikkim has just two B.Ed colleges and one elementary teacher training college; Meghalaya has four while Orissa has ten B.Ed colleges.

A huge imbalance has also emerged in the number of B.Ed colleges which train teachers for secondary school teaching, and D.Ed colleges which train elementary school teachers. Although the demand for elementary (primary, and upper primary) teachers is greater than for secondary school teachers, yet the number of B.Ed colleges is greater than the number of D.Ed institutions. According to National University of Education Planning and Administration data, India has 1.12 million elementary schools and a mere 151,000 secondary schools. Yet in the year 2004-05, NCTE granted approval to 690 B.Ed colleges and a mere 200 D.Ed colleges.

The policy confusion which characterises teacher training and education in India is compounded by the division of responsibility between the apex-level NCTE and universities which are required to affiliate teacher training colleges. While NCTE discharges the role of licensor and regulator, universities in the states are mandated to formulate syllabuses, curriculums and innovative training programmes for teacher training institutions while monitoring academic standards. Under the existing system, a new private teacher training college has to get approval from NCTE as well as a university for its teacher training programmes. However, the eligibility criteria prescribed by universities and NCTE often vary widely with the result that some colleges cleared by NCTE have to wait for years to get approval from the university or vice-versa. A case in point is the Shyama Prasad College, Delhi which received approval from Delhi University (DU) to offer the varsity’s B.Ed course in 2005. But despite being cleared by the prestigious DU, it is still awaiting an inspection team from NCTE to visit the college. Meanwhile the college is yet to start its B.Ed programme.

Given this pathetic state of affairs, it’s hardly surprising that the Sudeep Banerjee Committee, which was appointed by the Union HRD ministry to investigate the apex teacher education council, has recommended scrapping the NCTE. The report which was submitted to the HRD ministry last April, has reportedly recommended that the NCTE Act, 1993, be repealed and that all regulatory functions relating to licensing, inspection, curriculum development and academic supervision be transferred to Central and state universities. The committee has indicted NCTE for "promoting commercialisation and unplanned proliferation of teacher education institutes".

Unsurprisingly, the NCTE top brass doesn’t agree. "The Sudeep Banerjee recommendations haven’t been shared with us. Meanwhile it is not correct to say that NCTE is preoccupied with licensing B.Ed colleges rather than developing teaching processes and curriculums. Thus far NCTE has presented two national curriculum framework documents and an innovative B.Ed programme formulated after national consultations. The change process may be slow but we have engineered a definite swing towards making teaching in classrooms learner friendly. Instead of being shut down, NCTE should be strengthened by enforcing remedial and corrective measures to check aberrations in the modus operandi of its regional offices," says Dr. Shardindu, the Delhi-based chairman of NCTE.

Given that NCTE has been operational for over a decade and the fact that it has multiplied the number of much-needed teacher training institutions — good, bad, or indifferent — not a few independent teacher educators support this point of view. Against the backdrop of 8,000 teacher training colleges of varying quality countrywide, they feel there is a need for an apex-level regulator monitoring academic standards in teacher education on the lines of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), which supervises professional education institutions. "Even though most of the Sudeep Banerjee Committee’s criticisms of NCTE are valid, we still need an organisation which will ensure standardisation of teacher education across the country. NCTE needs an overhaul rather than burial. NCTE should re-model itself on the lines of the NCERT (National Council for Education Research and Training), which has prepared detailed recommendations on how teachers can actualise the National Curriculum Framework 2005 drafted by it," says Prof. Bharati Bareja, head of the education department at Delhi University.

Certainly the issue of the poor quality of education and training being dispensed by the overwhelming majority of the country’s 8,000 teacher training colleges, at a time when under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan programme the school-going children’s population is set to explode, can no longer be fudged. Despite D.Ed/B.Ed certification being the pre-requisite for appointment to teaching positions in all government as well as most private schools, the syllabuses and curriculums of teacher training colleges are sadly out-of-step with contemporary teacher training and education pedagogies. Conventional teacher training syllabuses which emphasise voice control, blackboard work, questioning and recapitulation, have long been abandoned in the West, but persist in teacher training colleges across the country.

"The curriculums of India’s D.Ed/B.Ed colleges are rote-learning centred, offering little room for critical thinking, classroom innovations and teacher initiatives. Above all, curriculums don’t sensitise teachers to children with special learning needs. A trainee teacher should be sensitised to teach in a classroom with children of varying abilities, including learning difficulties. Sadly, the B.Ed course is of less than a year’s duration and the curriculum is rushed through to meet exam deadlines. No professional teacher training course in the world is as rushed as a B.Ed course in India, from which teachers at best emerge with scattered information and learning," says Roda Billimoria, an alumna of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and Uppsala University, Sweden and founder trustee of the Shahpurji Billimoria Foundation (SBF), Mumbai. Promoted in 1998, SBF offers a carefully designed two-year diploma in teacher education with specific focus on inclusive education. The programme, which currently enrolls ten students, has been cited by Unicef as one of the five best inclusive education courses for teachers in India.

Likewise Dr. Leena Deshpande, principal of SNDT College of Education for Women, Pune is also critical of the short duration of the prescribed one- year B.Ed course for teachers. "In the B.Ed study programme, there’s just enough time to give students basic information on subjects such as learning disabilities and IT-enabled teaching, although we try our best in the time they are with us. SNDT last updated its curriculum in 2003. However, we cannot update our curriculum as freely as we would like to, since the number of colleges affiliated to SNDT has increased in the past two years and implementation is a big problem. In fact our board of studies is ready with a new curriculum but can’t implement it without NCTE first formulating its curriculum guidelines," says Deshpande. SNDT College of Women has recently been conferred the Institute of Advanced Studies in Education status by the HRD ministry, and offers B.Ed as well M.Ed programmes to its small complement of 140 students.

On their part, B.Ed college managements complain that they receive grudging support from schools — private and government — the end users of teaching graduates. In the typical one-year postgraduate B.Ed programme, trainee teachers are allotted 45 days to practice teaching in schools.

According to B.Ed college managements, both private and government schools are reluctant to allow trainee teachers to intern in their schools for 45 days. "Most private schools, especially the better known ones, don’t allow teacher trainees to apprentice in their schools. They say it’s a waste of time, and delays completion of the syllabus. Practice teaching is the most important component of the B.Ed study programme — the time when trainees learn to face and teach a classroom with real students. If school managements don’t encourage trainee teachers to practice teaching, trainees will never gain self-confidence or the skills to become good teachers. It’s a vicious cycle," says Dr. N. Rajashekar, principal of the private sector Reva College of Education, Bangalore (estb. 2004), which boasts an enrollment of 100 B.Ed students who pay tuition fees ranging between Rs.16,125-37,125 per year.

Nor does it help that private sector B.Ed colleges have little control over the quality of graduates they admit. All private sector teacher training colleges have to reserve 50 percent of annual intake for aspiring teachers who pass the state governments’ undemanding entrance tests. While government quota trainees pay Rs.16,000 per year, management quota trainees cross- subsidise government sponsored teachers by paying Rs.30,000 upwards as tuition fees. "Graduates admitted into B.Ed colleges may be meritorious but most of them lack teaching competence. As the government selection process doesn’t include personal interviews, many students without any communication skills are admitted. Moreover a large number of graduates choose a teaching career after they’ve exhausted all other options. To produce good quality teachers, we need to attract the best students and for this we must make school teaching an attractive and well-paid profession," says Dr. Vimala Ernest Punithakumar, principal of the private sector St. Christophers College of Education, Chennai (estb.1923), which offers B.Ed/D.Ed/M.Ed/M Phil and Ph D programmes to 231 students instructed by 21 teachers. St. Christophers recently received an ‘A’ rating by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).

Given the confusing mess that has been made of the teaching profession in the country, it’s hardly surprising that it’s a last choice with Indian youth. Poor pay packages, dilapidated education infrastructure, shabby, ill-ventilated and crowded classrooms, schools without toilets or water, disheartening government policies, suffocating bureaucratic interference, and a lack of social respect and recognition, are major factors disincentivising the country’s brightest and best graduates from entering the teaching profession. To make teaching an attractive career option, the Central and state governments need to take a cue from developed countries such as Canada, South Korea, Singapore and Finland, which boast highly sophisticated teacher education systems. South Korea recruits primary school teachers from the top 5 percent of graduates, Singapore and Hong Kong from the top 30 percent. In Finland, all new teachers must have a Master’s degree (see box).

For instance the Bangalore-based International Academy for Creative Teaching (iACT, estb. 2002), a constituent of the 28-strong Jain Group of Institutions, offers a one-year intensive graduate diploma in teaching to its 50 graduate students (tuition fee: Rs.45,000). According to iACT’s director Sandeep Shastry, there’s a great demand for well-trained teachers and iACT students are placed even before they graduate, at monthly pay packages ranging between Rs.10,000-30,000. "Our programme is not recognised by NCTE, yet we have a long list of schools waiting to recruit our graduates. This is because the iACT graduate diploma has been prepared keeping in mind the training required by contemporary teachers capable of infusing creativity in classrooms, and equipped with well-developed communication skills" says Shastry.

Moreover fortunately for the country’s estimated 200 million children enrolled in schools, several private sector organisations such as iACT are also stepping in to offer quality in-service teacher training for already employed teachers. Since its establishment in 2002, iACT has conducted training workshops for 6,500 in-service teachers from over 300 schools. Likewise the Mumbai-based Destiny Education, a teacher training organisation comprising a team of seven highly qualified teacher educators from the US, UK and Australia, has provided in-service teacher training to over 1,800 teachers in 450 schools countrywide.

"Given that syllabuses in teacher training colleges are completely outdated, introduction of continuous professional development programmes for in-service teachers is absolutely necessary to ensure effective teaching in schools. NCERT recommends 20 days per year of in-service training by reputed training organisations for teachers in all schools. Simultaneously with on-going professional development, there must be a teacher appraisal and accreditation system so that high-quality teaching standards can be maintained countrywide," says John Barclay, former principal of Gandaki Boarding School, Nepal and Hebron International School, Ooty, and currently the promoter-director of Destiny Education.

While the number of new private sector initiatives in teacher education is small given the size of the problem, hopefully they will serve the useful function of spurring the country’s estimated 8,000 teacher training colleges to upgrade their syllabuses and pedag-ogies. Simultaneously there’s a good case for acceptance of the Sudeep Banerjee Committee’s recommen-dation of eliminating the licensing role of NCTE, and transforming it into a teacher training and pedagogy research organisation, with maintenance of standards and supervision functions transferred to the affiliating university.

Quite clearly as pressure to attain the Union government’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals gather steam, India which currently has an unsustainable 1:60 teacher-pupil ratio, will need to sharply increase the supply of teachers into the school system. And if at all the country is to even partially reap its high-potential demographic dividend, the huge number of teachers about to enter the nation’s classrooms will have to be well-trained by professionals equipped with skill-sets to deliver real learning outcomes.

That’s why cleaning up the mess in teacher education is an urgent national priority.

With Autar Nehru (Bangalore); Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai) & Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)