The SIKSHYA BARTA (India‘s No- 1 Educational and multi lingual ) – A leading News Paper Wishing You All Prosperous And Successful Days During The Whole Years 2030 in your Personal & Professional lives. We Have to Set Things Right and to Open up a New Chapter in Our Lives to Make Our Country As an “EDUCATIONAL WORLD “ and to Build up Bright and Progressive INDIA!!!
( WE SHOULD FOLLOW THE EDUCATIONAL POLICIES AND OBEY THE GUIDELINES OF THE CENTRAL & STATE GOVTS.)
1.Achieving desired Pupil Teacher Ratios:
The practice of assigning teachers to individual schools based on overall student-teacher ratios will be replaced by a much more careful assignment system based on the educational needs of the children. Given that teachers can be shared across the school complex, this will not cost as much as it would have to ful fill PTR ratios in each subject at the level of individual schools. Adequate numbers of teachers will be recruited and deployed in school complexes to ensure that all subject-teaching needs at every school in the complex are met. Teachers in subjects such as art, music, Vocational crafts, sports, and yoga will be shared across the school complex, as will be substitute teachers, student counselors, and social workers.
2.Ensuring both local teachers as well as diversity:
In hiring school teachers, at all stages but particularly at the Foundational, Elementary, and Middle stages,strong preference will be given to local teachers and to teachers fluent in the local language, so that teachers may communicate easily with students, and with their parents and community members. Teachers will also be recruited and deployed with respect to considerations of diversity, with an emphasis on recruiting from URG. This will help to make education as inclusive as possible,and students from URGs will also have excellent role models in their teachers,in every locality. There will also be a strong imperative to recruit an increased number of female teachers, including local female teachers.
3.Deployment of teachers to a particular school complex:
Teachers will be recruited to the district, as is done now in many States, and then deployed to the school complex, and then, as per school needs, to individual schools.For certain subjects, such as art, music, physical education, languages, and vocational crafts, some teachers may be shared across schools in the complexto ensure that these subjects are available and taught well at all schools.
4-Incentives to teach in rural areas:
Suitable incentives will be developed for excellent teachers to desire teaching jobs in schools in rural, tribal,and remote areas, where they are especially needed. These incentives will include, in particular, quality housing on or near the school premises, so that the frequent hurdles for teachers of procuring suitable housing close to schools in such areas are eliminated.
5- Recruitment will be rigorous, impartial, transparent- designed to find the best teachers, representing the high regard and respect in which they and their profession are held by society.Halting / slowing teacher transfers to ensure continuity of teacher student-community relationships:
For teachers to develop strong relationships with their school complex communities, teachers will ideally not be transferred out of the school complex. A one-time adjustment of teacher placements may be carried out in accordance with their wishes ,tenure status, and ability to speak the local language; all future teacher recruitments will be carried out against vacancies and subject/stage/local language requirements in specific school complexes. If teacher transfers cannot be discontinued, then transfers must be carried out in a much more sparing manner by the State governments to ensure continuity of teacher appointments and teacher investment in their communities. A fixed tenure of at least 5 to 7 years, and a rule- and empathy-based system of transfers,through a transparent IT system, will be the way forward. Such a move will need to be backed by suitable legislation.
6-Induction of freshly trained teachers into schools:
Research and understanding of the development of teachers draws attention to the initial post-employment period as being crucial and requiring support and mentoring. All fresh teachers, in their first two years of teaching, will be registered with a centre. That is associated with the school complex where they are inducted, so that they can be mentored and integrated into a community of their peers. Teacher induction could also be designed as blended learning, with some face-to-face meetings and school-based mentoring and participation in a community of practice. During the period of their induction, beginning teachers could be given a lighter workload as compared to experienced teachers (about 80% of the workload). Collaborative unit planning, review and discussion of modules,plans and experiences, knowledge of and use of school complex resources, evaluation techniques, individualizing teaching, organizing group work and collaborative learning, classroom management, and building connection and relationships with the complex and the community are some of the areas that merit such specific mentoring and focus during the beginning teacher phase.
7-Teachers must feel a part of, and be invested in, the schools and communitiesin which they serve.
Teacher-requirement planning:
Recruitment of teachers will be carried out through a robust process based on projections for the number of teachers needed, taking into consideration the requirements for subject teachers as well as special teachers at all schools within a school complex. A careful and comprehensive teacher-requirement planning exercise will be undertaken immediately, along with the demarcation of school complexes, and then once again every five years at the Centre as well as at the State levels. State governments will priorities funding to ensure that every school complex hasa full complement of teachers at the level of the complex, and on a shared basis at the level of individual schools. The number of B.ED. scholarships with guaranteed employment in each geographical region, will also be determined based on the data collected during such teacher-requirement planning exercises.
8-School environment and culture that is cconducive to quality education
Happy and motivated teachers and students make for good learning. Schools should be aesthetically pleasing, inviting, and inspiring places to be for students as well as teachers. They must be clean, pleasant, and safe, and teachers must have the necessary freedom, infrastructure, and resources to perform their roles. It is important that teachers feel a part of, and are invested in, the schools and communities in which they serve so they must be provided with basic facilities and supplies they need to help them teach effectively, with safety,dignity, and good health.
09-Adequate physical infrastructure, facilities, and learning resources:
All schools will be provided with adequate physical infrastructure, facilities, and learning resources, either individually or within their school complex. State governments will review all schools against clearly stated norms for essential facilities and safe and attractive learning environments and achieve them by2022. Funding will be allocated by the Centre and State governments on apriority basis for the design, development, and maintenance of infrastructure and resources that are effective and conducive to learning.Electricity connections will be provided to all schools that do not already have them, by 2022, and they will be charged the lowest rate of tariff. All schools will also be provided with computers and internet connectivity for pedagogical purposes, infrastructure and materials to support differently abled students, safe drinking water on the school premises, functioning toilets with running water, separate for girls and boys, and basic hand washing facilities by 2030. The infrastructure and teaching materials necessary to teach students effectively include functioning classroom boards, vibrant school libraries, equipment for use in science experiments and laboratories, material for arts/crafts and vocational training classes, computer rooms, as well as suitable classrooms with adequate furniture.
Consultations will be held with leading educators, cognitive scientists, artists, and architects on Learning Space Designs that optimise learning andare inviting, and that take into consideration and incorporate local cultures,arts, and traditions. New schools will be constructed keeping in view these designs.
Teachers must be given constant opportunities for self-improvement and to learn the latest innovations and advances in their profession.
10-Caring and inclusive school culture:
Schools will attempt to develop and demonstrate a caring, collaborative, and inclusive school culture. This will be specified in the role expectations of the head teacher/principal and teachers.Both pre-service teacher education and CPD shall make development of the dispositions and capacities for caring and inclusive culture as an integralpart of their goals. The School Management Committee (SMC) shall be sensitised about the need for creating a caring and inclusive school culture on a continuing basis and the officials of the Directorate of School Education(DSE) will reorient their functioning to support such a culture. This must be made explicit in their role expectations.
Practices of inclusive, caring, and collaborative culture will be shared across schools and innovations and good practices recognized – e.g. with respect to the way in which the principal interacts with teachers, and teachers interact with children and parents; the way responsibilities are organized and shared;the accessibility of learning resources to all; the organization of the school calendar and time-table; the participation of teachers and children in the school; and non-discriminatory and equal behavior with children from all(particularly disadvantaged) groups.
11-Ensuring that teachers are able to teach with full dedication and at full capacity – no non-teaching activities:
There must be no interruption to school schedules so that teachers can use their work time to concentrate solely on and excel at their chosen professions. Aside from the minimal Supreme Court directives related to election duty and conducting surveys, teachers will not be requested nor allowed to participate in any non-teaching activities during school hours that affect their capacities as teachers – e.g. cooking midday meals, participating in vaccination campaigns, procuring school supplies, or any other time-consuming administrative assignments. For any non-teaching jobs at schools, staff must be deployed as needed and shared across the school complex. Teachers in turn will be held accountable for being absent from school without cause or without being on approved leave.
12-Remedial education:
Remedial programmes will be established at all levels to help teachers in ensuring that all students are achieving their potential.Teachers will manage school remedial programmes, such as the NTP and theRIAP. They will help identify students who require the services of peer tutors and IAs and connect them with tutors and aides on an expedited basis. Teachers will also select the tutors and guide their work in the NTP, and that of the IAs
in RIAP, so that they can effectively support their students who require extra support. The RIAP programme is time bound, designed to help schools catch-up with backlog of falling behind, and neither the aides not the tutors are inany way a replacement for the teacher. In the long term, post the closure of theRIAP, it will be the teachers who will be responsible for identifying and helping students who are falling behind in the curricular work in the classroom along with the peer and volunteer tutors that they assign and supervise. The workload of the teachers will be suitably adjusted to make time for these criticaltasks.
13-Rejuvenating academic support institutions (SCERT, BITE, DIET, BRC,CRC, CTE, IASE):
The BITEs, DIETs, BRCs, CRCs, and other academic support institutions represent an important investment in developing an infrastructureto support quality in school education. These institutions provide schoolbasedteacher support and mentoring, access to resources and professional development, and quality monitoring and supersion. A well-connected, ell resource ed network of these support institutions at the district and sub-district levels, with CRCs at the school complex level linked to BITEs and DIETs through BRCs, and integrated into the State’s long-term vision and plan for quality improvement of schools and teacher education, will go a long way in supporting teachers and improving the quality of education. A careful plan to strengthen all existing academic support institutions will be created and implemented.
14-Community connect:
In the spirit of increasing local governance, and involving the most crucial stakeholders (including teachers) in the governance process, every teacher by rotation will have the opportunity to serve and connect with their community by being on the SMC and SCMC.
15-Materials for teachers in Indian languages:
Developing high-quality material for teachers and teacher educators in Indian languages, including tribal languages, will be accorded priority in order to ensure quality learning in the local language and thereby the inclusion of all students. This will be carried out in a distributed manner, backed with appropriate funding, toensure that innovation is fostered. Universities/departments that could take responsibility for translations and validation of language quality willbe identified and supported. Material will be produced in print or in digitalform. Teachers and teacher educators will be encouraged to develop material in local languages.
16-Continuous professional Development
The development of teacher interests and their own continuous educationand related career shifts within the profession must be supported by a rationalapproach to professional development that is based on a modular approach.A range of opportunities to be members of professional communities wherethey share their experiences, practices and insights, and opportunities toupdate their knowledge must be made available.Teachers should be able to develop in their professions to become academiccoordinators or supervisors in their schools, educational administrators,mentors, and also become faculty at teacher education institutions. A common practice has been to bring in teachers to serve in Cluster and BRCsas Resource Persons; this practice will also be continued and the opportunitywill be seen as a career advancement opportunity with a stable tenure of atleast five years. Experienced teachers developing into these new roles within the profession would go a long way in strengthening not only the quality ofschool education, but also the quality of teacher preparation programmes.
Such CPD also requires that teachers should be able to access accredited certified and modular programmes.
17-Flexible and modular approach to continuous professional development forteachers:
Teachers must have access to more short courses that are certified,for modular approaches that allow them to accumulate credits and earncertificates and diplomas, even leading to professional degrees (including anM.A. in Education or M.Ed. degrees). Such courses must be offered in a rangeof formats including part time, evening, blended, and online in additional tofull time programmes either by Departments of Education at Universities or atCentres of Professional Development that are accredited. Teachers must alsohave opportunities for research, access to professional communities throughwhich they develop and share their professional knowledge. Teachers who arein service need to be seen as an important student clientele by Departments of Education at universities, so that programmes that meet their requirementsfor research and further study are developed and offered.
These requirements and avenues of professional development are over andabove other avenues that are already well established presently, includingworkshops, seminars, short courses, teacher meets, and also certificate and diploma courses for various areas of pedagogy and related skills, understanding of education, school social work, administration and leadership.
The practice of assigning teachers to individual schools based on overall student-teacher ratios will be replaced bya much more careful assignment systembased on the educational needs of children.
18-Revamping continuous professional development:
All CPD will be redesigned,keeping in mind the following considerations:
- A well-integrated CPD curriculum will be developed for all stages and subjects including subject content, pedagogical content knowledge, development ofschool culture, classroom practice, and – in cases of principals/headmasters/school complex leaders – also management, administration, resource sharing, effective handling of finances, and leadership.
- Teachers must be able to choose what they want to learn, the content as wellas the delivery methods. Teachers will have the opportunity to choose frommultiple modes of learning – namely, expert-driven, peer-supported, or self directed;in-person workshops, blended, or online; etc. – which would be all informed by the CPD curriculum and will include short and long-duration workshops, short discussions, exposure visits, in-class demonstrations, online apps and content, and other creative methods.
- Teachers will complete, at minimum, 50 hours of CPD training per year, across all platforms, as per their choosing.
19-Self-directed personal development of teachers:
All States should adopt a technology-based system for enabling choice-based CPD and to trackthe professional trajectory of each teacher. This system must be used for developmental purposes by the teacher as well as head teachers and principals,and be based on a personal development plan and goals. Professional learning communities and centres must be created, developed and sustained. While such efforts do require great academic and social expertise, they must becarried out so that a culture of self/peer learning is developed rather thana “command and control”-type directed learning. CPD must be deliveredwithin school complexes by making use of the nearest CRCs, which canbe upgraded into well-resourced and pleasant environments, offering platforms for peer learning. Mechanisms for regular interactions, such asschool complex meetings, may also be utilised for peer-supported CPD.
20-Online resources for continuous professional development:
ICT will also be utilised extensively for CPD. Teachers will be given access to the internet and to technology platforms both at school and from their homes. There will be no centralised determination of the curriculum, no cascade-model training and no rigid norms.The resource people for delivering these CPD programmes will be carefully selected, effectively trained, and will have tenure in the role. The capacity ofthese resource persons / teacher educators will have considerable impact onthe quality of the CPDs so they will be suitably invested in. Such resourcepersons will most often be selected from amongst the best teachers and theymust be given every opportunity to develop their knowledge continually.Collaboration with civil society organisations will be encouraged for the development and execution of effective CPD. The programmes will be based on a coherent curriculum framework that addresses issues relevant to thepractice of teaching, including perspectives in education, content, pedagogy, interrelated nature of subjects, school culture, governance, management,resource sharing, and leadership.
21-In-school teacher development processes:
Every head teacher and/orschool principal will be responsible for building strong in-school teacher development processes and a supportive school culture that enhances the
capabilities of all the teachers in the school. This task will be integrated into their role definition and evaluation. In this effort, the teachers and the head teacher/principal can receive support from the larger community available to them within the school complex.
22-Recognising outstanding teachers:
Truly outstanding teachers – as nominated and recommended by students, parents, principals, school complex leaders, and peers – will be given awards annually at ceremonies atthe school, school complex, district, State, and national levels, to recognize and incentivise innovative and transformative work of dedicated teachers acrossthe country.
23-Career management
Tenure track system of hiring teachers:
A tenure track system for hiringteachers across all levels of education will be established. Under the tenure track systems, teachers will be on a three-year probationary/tenure track period followed by a performance-based confirmation.Confirmation/tenure decisions will be made based on multiple factorsincluding peer review, dedication, and classroom evaluation. The frameworkfor this review will be set up by the SCERTs. It must include evaluation and assessment of long-term work and must not be based on episodic assessment. This assessment should be multi-source; reviews of peers, supervisors, andparents, and actual evidence of work, must be included. The system must be professionally rigorous and fair.Parity in service conditions across all stages of school education: As soon as possible and in the long term, pay and service conditions of teachers haveto be commensurate with their social and professional responsibilities, andmust be set so as to attract and retain talented teachers in the profession. All teachers, from Foundational stage teachers to Secondary school teachers, willbe recruited with standard service conditions as per their work requirements and the same salary structure.
All teachers will have the opportunity to progress in their career (in termsof salary, promotions, etc.) while remaining as teachers in the same stage of education (i.e., Foundational, Preparatory, Middle, or Secondary). The approach will be to ensure that growth in one’s career (salary and promotion)is available to teachers within a single school stage, and that there is no career progression-related incentive to move from being teachers in early stages tolater stages (though such career moves across stages will be allowed, provided the teacher has the desire and qualifications for such a move).
This is to support the fact that all stages of school education will require thehighest-quality teachers, and thus no stage will be considered more important than any other – indeed, early stages of school education are equally important and will require highly qualified teachers in the practice of early childhoodeducation. Therefore, in ten years (by 2030), as the necessary qualificationfor all teacher roles becomes the four-year integrated B.Ed. programme, the salary-and-promotion structure will also be made equivalent across all stages.
Professional progression via promotions and salary increases: Independentof the stage of school education they are currently engaged with, teachers willbe able to progress within that stage via merit-based promotions and salary increases. The aim will be to have a clearly-defined promotion-and-salaryladder to mark milestones in professional development and accomplishment,and therefore continuous incentives for conducting outstanding work as a teacher.There will be at least five promotional levels as a teacher in each stage, which may be labelled Early Teacher (without tenure), Early Teacher (withtenure), Proficient Teacher, Expert Teacher, and Master Teacher. Within each promotional level / rank, there would be a preset range of salary levelsthrough which teachers could progress based on merit and performance inthat rank.
Professional standards would be defined (see P5.4.4 below) for these levels,including expectations from teachers in these levels; e.g. Master Teacherswould naturally become the resource persons for CPD of teachers in theirgeographical area.
There will be parity in service conditions for teachers across all stagesof school education.
24-Professional standards for teachers:
Clearly laid out professional standardsfor teachers will inform career progression of teachers. A common guidingset of National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) will be developedby 2030, coordinated by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE)and NCERT, while involving the SCERTs, teachers from across levels andregions, expert organisations in teacher preparation and development, and higher educational institutions.Each State may then develop its own specific standards, State Professional Standards for Teachers (SPST), coordinated by the SCERT; these standards, and performance appraisal vis-a`-vis these standards, will determine allteacher career management, including tenure (after the probationary/tenure track period), professional development efforts, salary increases,promotions, and other recognitions. Promotions and salary increases willnot occur based on the length of tenure or seniority, but only on the basis of such appraisal.The professional standards will be reviewed and revised nationally and then at the State level in 2030, and thereafter every ten years, on the basisof rigorous empirical analysis of the efficacy of the system. The standards would cover expectations of the role of the teacher at different levels ofexpertise / rank, and the competencies required for that rank. It will also comprise standards for performance appraisal, for each rank, that would becarried out on a periodic basis and would be used, in particular, for salary increases within that rank.
Such standards for performance appraisal would include both hard indicatorswhich are non-negotiable (e.g. attendance regularity and punctuality, financial propriety, not using corporal punishment, participating in any mandatory school functions and meetings, etc.) and soft indicators (such as effective pedagogy and classroom practices, effective developmental assessment ofprogress of students, effective use of teaching-learning material, quality of engagement and interaction with parents and students, organisation of qualityschool events, etc.) which are related to professional practice and competencies.The NPST and SPST will also inform the design of the pre-service teacher education programmes.Performance Indicators for Elementary School Teachers (PINDICS) already developed by NCERT can be a useful document to serve as a starting point forthis exercise.
25-All teachers will have possible careerbprogression paths to become educational administrators or teacher educators.
Periodic (annual or higher frequency) performance appraisal of teachers:
The SPST will form the basis for the performance appraisal of teachers. Suchan appraisal will be carried out by the head teacher and the head of the school complex, and similarly for the head teacher by the head of the school complex and the Block Education Officer (BEO). All heads of school complexes will be appraised by the BEO and District Education Officer (DEO). All appraisals will be based on carefully recorded multiple sources of evidence, comprising minimally of school visits, school records and classroom observations, peer review, and feedback on progress of students. The appraisal must be endorsed by the SMC. The details of this process will delineated by the SCERTs by 2022for each State.This process will also be the basis for determining teacher accountability.Teachers are accountable to students, their parents, the community and the public at large for what they are doing or not doing for education in schools.
This ensures professional integrity and transparency in the education system.It will always be important to remember that empowerment and autonomy are preconditions for true accountability – a threatening environment is then emesis of sustainable quality. Accountability mechanisms that has clearnon-negotiables and supports teachers in effecting improvements will tendto work the most effectively. This mechanism will look at several factors that make up accountability while ensuring autonomy and empowerment for all teachers. Based on the NPST, the SCERTs will also develop the frameworks and norms for this autonomy and empowerment in the teacher’s role withintheir States as a part of their SPSTs.
26-Professional progression via vertical mobility:
In addition to moving across ranks within their own stage or stages of teaching, teachers will alsobe able to move into either educational administration or teacher educationas part of their career progressions. After outstanding and clearly-defined accomplishments as a teacher, school teachers may choose toa. Enter educational administration, orb. Become teacher educators. In the long term, all educational administrative positions in CRCs, BRCs, BITEs, DIETs, SCERTs, etc. will be reservedfor outstanding teachers who are interested in administration by wayof their career development paths. The professional standards to entereducational administration or teacher education will again be set by theNPST and SPSTs, and would require at a minimum outstanding teaching, in addition to requirements (in the case of educational administration) ofleadership / management experience or training.
27-Approach to teacher education
Teacher education requires multidisciplinary inputs and a marriageof high-quality content with pedagogy that can only be truly attainedif teacher preparation is conducted within composite institutions offering multidisciplinary academic programmers and environments. As a consequence, programmers of teacher preparation at all levels must be conducted within large multidisciplinary universities or colleges in order tobe maximally effective. Teacher education in multidisciplinary colleges or universities would ensure that teacher education benefits from interaction with other areas of higher education, and that student-teachers develop in liberal spaces with access to a full range of academic resources, including libraries, internet, and extra-curricular activities. Teachers-in-training would thereby be able to interact with peers from other disciplines and be taught by faculty in allied disciplines of education such as psychology, child development, and social sciences – making them that much stronger as teachers when they graduate. Multidisciplinary settings will also ensure that the disciplinary components of integrated programmers will be offered by experts from the relevant departments.
In terms of areas for further reform within the education component of theB.Ed. programme, multilevel, discussion-based, and constructivist learning,and a concentration on foundational literacy/numeracy, inclusive pedagogyand evaluation, knowledge of India and its traditions, and the developmentin students of 21st century skills such as problem-solving, critical and creative thinking, ethical and moral reasoning, and communication and discussionabilities, are among the key areas of the curriculum for teacher preparation that will be reformed and revitalised.
Ensuring that university B.Ed. programmes are affiliated with a variety ofnearby schools at various levels – in which potential teachers may student teach in order to hone the above skills and obtain practical teaching experience- will complete the well-rounded education and training of B.Ed. candidatesthat will be needed to produce outstanding teachers.While such four-year Integrated B.Ed. programmes are being developed atmulti disciplinary universities, every effort will be made to shut down thepractice of corrupt and substandard teacher education institutions that selldegrees with little actual education; the purpose of this important initiative will be to bring, as quickly as possible, the needed integrity and thus qualityinto the teacher education system. By 2030, the goal will be to have all B.Ed.programmes moved into multidisciplinary colleges universities.The actions that will be required in the higher education system for this shiftof teacher education will be described in more detail in Chapter 15; below are described the basic changes in the approach for teacher education thatwill be adopted in order to ensure passionate, motivated, well-qualified, andholistically well-trained teachers in our schools.
Teacher education for all levels willtake place within the university / highereducation system as a stage-specific,4-year integrated Bachelor of Education(B.Ed.) programme that combines highqualitycontent, pedagogy, and practicaltraining.
Moving teacher education into the university system; the four-year integrated B.Ed. programme:
Teacher education for all levels – Foundational, Preparatory,Middle, and Secondary – will take place within the university/higher education system as a stage-specific, four-year integrated B.Ed. programme, combining content, pedagogy, and practical training. The four-year integrated B.Ed.programme of pre-service teacher preparation for different tracks will beoffered at the university level as a dual-degree (in education together with anydesired specialised subject) undergraduate programme of study, and will thus include both disciplinary as well as teacher preparation courses.Every B.Ed. programme will be affiliated with 10-15 local schools where student teacher internships would take place. Each student in a B.Ed. programme will
go through a period of student teaching at one of these schools where she/he would be placed with a mentoring teacher – first observing the mentor’sclass, then teaching students in the mentor’s classroom with feedback fromthe mentor, and also carrying out remedial work or other teaching-relatedtasks under the mentor’s guidance.The different tracks that teachers will be prepared for in a B.Ed. programmewill include:
- Foundational and Preparatory school generalist teachers;
- Subject teachers for Middle and Secondary school;
- Special education teachers;
- Art teachers (including visual and performing arts);
- Teachers for vocational education; and
- Physical education teachers. The four-year degree will be on par withother undergraduate degrees and students with a four-year integrated
B.Ed. will be eligible to move on to a Master’s degree programme in eitherthe disciplinary stream or the pedagogic stream.
The two-year B.Ed. programme for lateral entry into teaching: The twoyearB.Ed. degree will be offered to Bachelor’s degree holders in variousdisciplines for the preparation of teachers for various levels of schooling,e.g. as subject teachers for Middle and Secondary education, and will againinclude a strong practical training component in schools. Offering a twoyear B.Ed. programme, in addition to the four-year integrated B.Ed., willenable entry into the profession of teaching for people who are at later stagesin their careers, and will help to attract diverse talent into the profession.The two-year programme will continue to be offered at institutions suchas Colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs), Regional Institutes of Education (RIEs), and other locations till such time as the four-year degree is seededat universities, and begins graduating an adequate number of teachers.Beyond that, the two-year degree will be retained only at multidisciplinaryinstitutions offering the four-year integrated B.Ed. programme. For thosestudents who have obtained a four-year liberal Bachelor’s degree, or forpersons with other outstanding specialised qualifications to become asubject teacher (such as a Master’s degree in the specialised subject), thetwo-year B.Ed. programme could be replaced by a suitably structured specialB.Ed. programme of slightly shorter duration, as determined by the same multidisciplinary institutions offering the four-year integrated and two-yearB.Ed. programmes.
Specialised instructors for specialised subjects: In the case of certainspecialised subjects or expertise of a local nature – including but not limitedto local traditional art, music, vocational crafts, language, poetry, literature,or business – a well-respected local expert may be hired as a “SpecialisedInstructor” to teach in a school or a school complex, after a short, say, 10-day orientation programme offered by the school complex itself. This willhelp to easily introduce local arts, languages, crafts, etc. into the curriculum,support the local arts, and will also encourage prominent persons from thecommunity to come share their knowledge with students and inspire them.
Closing down substandard standalone teacher education institutions: Theprocess of reviewing the performance of teacher education institutions, andclosing down the corrupt or substandard ones will be immediately initiatedthrough mandatory accreditation of all TEIs as multidisciplinary HEIs withinthe next 3-5 years. A sound legal strategy to weed out poorly performing programmes and shutting them down will be put in place by the Rashtriya Shiksha Aayog (RSA) (see Chapter 23), in collaboration with the National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA). Promoters of such institutions will be free to put their infrastructure to other productive uses, such as for vocational education. See also Section 16.1.
Pedagogical aspects of the four-year integrated B.Ed. programme: In additionto multidisciplinary knowledge, and specialised subject content as chosen by thestudent, the pedagogical aspects of the four-year integrated B.Ed. programme
