New vistas in teacher development

by Anil Pagoda ARACHCHI

It is heartening to come to know that the Minister of Education has decided to recruit graduates to be trained as teachers at the National Colleges of Education. This brief article aims at analytically discussing the scope and structure of the courses to be designed for them and the innovations that can be integrated into them.

Colleges of Education

Though 23 years have elapsed since the introduction of the concept of the Colleges of Education in 1985, no comprehensive attempt so far has been made to assess and evaluate the quantitative and qualitative development of the teacher development courses provided by them.

However, informal discussions the writer has had with a considerable number of principals, in-service advisers and teachers, and his experience of observing teachers’ work as a former in-service adviser and as a teacher educator have enabled him to comparatively assess the work done by the teachers produced by the Colleges of Education.

Many of the principals and In-Service Teacher Advisers he talked to, were of the opinion that the teachers trained by the Colleges of education are far better than in all the aspects concerned with teaching learning process than the graduate teachers who have followed Postgraduate Diploma in Education courses conducted by the traditional Universities of the country, the Open University of Sri Lanka and the National Institute of Education.

One reason for this is the curriculum used at the Colleges, which comprises three areas namely, the special subject area, the professional subject area and the general subject area.

Integration of these areas in the process of teacher development provides ample worthwhile experience for the student teachers to acquire both theoretical and practical skills of the subjects they are expected to teach, the professional competencies needed for the teaching learning process and myriads of opportunities for their personality development as teachers.

This general subject area comprising both core curricular and extra curricular activities is not an organic component of any other teacher development course of the country.

The student teachers are provided with variety of opportunities to obtain rich experiences in many spheres which enable them to identify their potential and develop them during the three year period of the course.

For example, they hold annual sports meet, various types of exhibitions including a science and mathematics exhibition, photo exhibition, technology exhibition, concerts to improve their aesthetic skills in art, music, dancing and drama, conduct sky observation programs, drama festivals, art festivals to name a few in Siyane National College of Education. When a teacher student leaves a College of Education, he or she is well equipped with the entire essential competencies of a good teacher.

Minister Susil Premajayantha’s idea of training graduates through National Colleges of Education is praiseworthy. What the educators and educationists of the country must endeavour to do is not to resort to the traditional methods of teacher training as is done at the Universities, but to seek new vistas of teacher development further developing the concept of Colleges of Education.

Nature and structure

The writer does not necessarily advocate that the courses for training graduates must be designed in the same way as prevalent in the Colleges at present, yet those who have been appointed for the task of planning these courses can carry out a comprehensive study of courses conducted at the national College of Education in order to understand the nature and the structure of the courses to be introduced.

The best thing to be done for this is to get the help of the lecturers working in the Colleges because they seem to posses good experience in the field of teacher development with their training at foreign Universities. Unfortunately, no attempts so far have been taken to get the cooperation of the lecturers except the service of a few presidents.

Student teachers must be recruited through a well designed entrance examination followed by an interview to identify the basic characteristics a teacher should possess such as clarity and audibility of the voice, clear expression, inherent interests in the profession, ambitions and future prospects etc.

It has been observed that the present system of teacher recruitment to the National Colleges of Education based on the Z-score they obtain at the GCE (A/L) Examination has created a situation in which there is a possibility for those who do not have a genuine interest in teaching to come to the Colleges since they do not have any alternative. This anomaly can best be remedied through a comprehensive recruitment procedure.

Competency based training can be provided to the student teachers in semester wise comprising three semesters each having 20 weeks for a period of 18 months. While they can be given a theoretical and practical background on teaching in the first two semesters, they are sent to schools to work as interns in the last semester. Instead of the raw marks given at present, it would be more effective to introduce a credit system for the different subject areas.

Since teacher development is essentially evolutionary with the development of new ideas and practices to suit the changing socio-cultural and geo-political aspects of any society with the integration of the global tendencies, the course content must reflect a wide spectrum of both individual and societal needs.

What is in vogue today in teaching and learning pedagogy is constructivism. The 5 Es methodology that has been introduced to the school curriculum by the NIE, though it is related to constructivism, seems to have given way to a number of problems in this application in the classroom set-up.

There is no denying the fact that what is considered to be more innovative in teaching field is competency based education. However, can the lessons done by the teachers in the classroom confined to competency based activities as has been recommended by the NIE.

The teachers should have the liberty to employ any appropriate teaching learning methodology depending on the socio cultural context he works in and the nature of the subjects he teaches.

Course content and curriculum

Therefore, the writer is of the opinion that the following concepts can be embodied into the curriculum of the courses to be introduced. Teacher as a self agent, Teacher as a constructivist, Teacher as a social agent, Teacher as a reflective practitioner, Teacher as a researcher, Teacher as a practitioner of Multiple Intelligence Theory, Teacher as a practitioner of Multi Culturalism, Teacher as a practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming.

It is evident that the changes so far done to the goals of education, curriculum, Syllabi and the news series of textbooks have been integrated with the concept of multi culturalism. Regrettably, neither the syllabi used in the universities nor those of the National Colleges of Education have paid attention to train teachers to be practitioners of multi culturalism in the classroom thereby seriously restricting the realisation of the goals of the recent educational reforms.

Autonomy

The Colleges must be granted the freedom to design the course material according to the needs of the student teachers to be recruited to them.

For example, when student teachers are trained to teach science and mathematics, the general English course of them must be designed paying more attention to ESP (English for Specific Purposes) so that they could be equipped with the necessary language skills and a repertoire of vocabulary for teaching their respective subjects The Board looking into the preparation of the courses can also take into account of the possibility of allowing the respective College of strengthen the present assessment and evaluation system enabling them to confer their own certificates.

There should be a drastic shift from the evaluation culture towards an assessment culture with no reliance on the summative tests to be conducted at the end of the course. Instead this can be done through assignments, projects, presentations, collaborative work, observation and research.

Empowering and strengthening the process of mentoring is yet another aspect that has to be critically looked into to produce an efficient and productive teacher from the colleges. The mentors must be well trained for their job by giving them economical benefits as well.

In conclusion, what has been briefly discussed here is only a few areas to be concerned in developing courses for training graduates as teachers through College of Education.

The writer can contribute towards the formulation of a novel teacher development policy to be implemented in the National Colleges of Education if there be any need for it.

(The writer is a Lecturer, Siyane National College of Education, Veyangoda.)