The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, on November 12 launched the Centre for Excellence in Teacher Education (CETE) at the institute. Supported by Tata Trusts, the CETE claims to be a first-of-its-kind centre to bring about a holistic transformation in teacher education in the country with the help of a whole host of research and fieldwork that will add spine to their academic programmes.
Amrita Patwardhan, Head-Education, Tata Trusts, stresses the need for a systematic capacity building effort for teacher educators that can turn out to be a useful resource for teachers. "In order for us to effectively support teachers, we need to first invest in teacher education," she tells Edexlive. The centre also stresses the need for a collaborative effort with the state in order to reach a wider demographic of teachers. "We are collaborating with Mumbai University to reach a wider community and faculty of private and aided colleges. The new higher education faculty development authority of Maharashtra has reached out to us for discussion over collaborative work as well," says Prof Padma Sarangapani, Chairperson, CETE, TISS.
The centre will focus on research around teacher training with the help of fieldwork, which will include testing courses that work, and making real-time adjustments to course structures. "Pre-service teacher education needs a radical overhaul in the country. Some of the indicators of where quality stands today can be seen in results of teacher eligibility tests, where only 15-20 per cent teachers qualify," says Prof Padma, adding that one the teacher's career in India is flat, and the government needs to open up career paths in order for them to gain expertise in additional skills and progress. This will make the profession more attractive, she says.
The centre is working in tandem with the states of Telangana, Mizoram and Chhattisgarh to test the efficacy of their curriculum for teacher training. "The connected learning initiative of TISS connects them directly with several thousand teachers in these states," says Amrita.
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The influence that a teacher can have on a student can neither be undermined nor overstated. In the context of the pandemic, this influence becomes even more crucial. There is a need to counsel teachers to be more cognisant of the social and emotional needs of the students. "Teachers will not be able to ignore the fact that teachers have economic distress at home. There has been a tremendous financial impact of the pandemic on lives and livelihoods and that will come into the classrooms, and teachers will have to see it as part of their responsibility, not as somebody else's problems," Prof Padma states. She adds that we need to stop viewing teachers and students with a "deficit lens" by focusing on the learning loss. Instead, there is a need to recognise the fact that both teachers and students are coming in with a fresh set of acquired skills, and even though they were developed under stress, teachers need to become more adaptive to an increasingly diverse classroom environment.
The centre also stresses the need for teachers to be given the freedom to function in their own capacity. Amrita speaks of the non-academic work that teachers were asked to do before the pandemic and believes that it has only shot up. Then there is also mention of the National Achievement Survey which was conducted today, and Amrita believes that it prioritises testing over teaching. "The responsibility of the state is to give space to the teachers to decide at what pace she wants to go and how she wants to deal with the curriculum so that she is able to address the need of the child in front of her rather than catering to orders from the top. That is the need of the hour for reopened schools to welcome children and want them to come back," she says.
