A Report on the UGC sponsored National Seminar

About the Seminar
National Seminar on Empowering Teaching Educators for Quality Teacher Education

The NPE 1986 rightly mentions "The status of the teacher reflects the socio cultural ethos of a society. It is said that no people can rise above the level of its teachers. The government and the community should endeavor to create condition, which will help motivate and inspire teachers on constructive and creative lines. Teachers should have freedom to innovate, to devise appropriate methods of communication and activities relevant to the needs and capabilities of and the concerns of the community."

It is generally believed that the quality of teachers depends on the quality of the teacher education programme. And obviously the quality of teacher education programme depends on the quality of teacher educators. As teacher educators. As teacher education is a continuous process, teacher educators too need to update their knowledge, sharpen their pedagogical skills and enhance their research aptitude. In this era of Globalization, Liberalization and Privatization and with the new opportunities offered by ICT, it is essential that teacher educators be suitably empowered in terms of handling content and process of teacher education in new ways.

To bring about effective and meaningful changes and to enhance the quality in teacher education a natural step forward is to empower the teacher educators at large. Various committees, commissions and other academic bodies in the past have discussed this issue. However, our pedagogical endeavours continue to be lacking both in spirit and energy. There is an urgent need for a synergy in this context. The future classroom teachers need to be equipped to meet the emerging challenges. Obviously teacher educators need to be oriented towards new content of teacher education as well as towards new pedagogical techniques and strategies. Thus empowerment of teacher educators is the need of the hour. Further is would also help them assume new responsibilities for their own professional development and also provide support to other streams of education.

It is in this context the proposed seminar aimed at enhancing the quality of teacher education in general and teacher educators in particular. Keeping this rationale in view, a two-day national level UGC sponsored seminar on Empowerment of Teacher Educators for Quality Teacher Education was held at this institute on 24th March and 25th March.

The major objectives the seminar were as follows :

1. To initiate discursion on conceptual framework of Empowerment of Teacher Educators.
2. To identify areas of capacity enhancement of teacher educators along with the content to be included in these area.
3. To come out with strategies of empowerment of teacher educators at different levels and also other personnel involved in teacher education programmes.
4. To identify the institutional agencies and work out implications for these agencies, with regards to capacity enhancement of teacher educators.
5. To work out training modules for short term and long terms orientation programmes for teacher educators.
6. To identify the constraints and challenges, research needs in the area of capacity enhancement of teacher educators.

1. Quality Concerns in Teacher Education.
2. Empowerment of Teacher Educators - Concepts, Issues, Areas, Innovations, Research and Extension Activities.
3. Strategies and role of various agencies for Empowering Teacher Educators.
4. Constraints and Challenges in capacity building of Teacher Educators.
5. Local and global scenario related to empowering Teacher Educators.

The inauguration of the two day National Seminar on "Empowering Teacher Educators for Quality Teacher Education" organized jointly by Vidya Bhawan G.S. Teacher College & Vidya Bhawan Education Resource Centre was done on 24th March 2007 at Vidya Bhawan G.S. Teachers College. This occasion was graced by ex-vice President, National Council for Teacher Education & ex UNESCO-Chair Prof. B.K. Passi as chief guest; vice-chancellor of Mohan Lal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, Dr. B.L. Choudhary as special guest; Dr. B.P. Bhatnagar, ex-vice chancellor of Rajasthan Vidyapeeth University, (JRN University) as President of the inaugural session. Shri Riaz Ahmed Tehsin, President of Vidya Bhawan Society was also present on the occasion. 110 teacher educators from different institutes in the country attended the seminar.

Prof. Passi being his key-note address by talking about the reality of the world coming from the post modernism after industrialization. He said that all the variables existed independently only in mind but they were all interrelated. Due to reductionism in sciences, social sciences have suffered a lot "We need to work on the stage of holism (wholism) in the field of education. Growing seed involves many dimensions like gravity, air, water, color, growth, etc. The need is to establish relationship between reductionism and holism (Wholism), but we have reduced it to reductionism/specialization. We need to view relationship between things and view them holistically. Education should also consider this aspect and make it interdisciplinary."

"Prof. Passi further said," In education the need is to adopt problem based teaching methodology based on "Dialogue". We should move away from Theory-Practice-Problem (TPP) to Theory-Practice-Theory (PPT) approach in education.

Prof. M.P. Sharma, Principal of the host college welcomed the guests. Prof. Anu Poonia, coordinator of the seminar gave a brief presentation for setting the theme of the seminar, sub-themes expected outcomes of the seminar. She said that the theme of the seminar was conceived with the help of eminent educationists like Prof. O.S. Dewal, Prof. A.B. Phatak and Dr. H.K. Dewan.

Vice-Chancellor of Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur Prof. B.L. Choudhary discussed the problems of teacher educators and said that unfortunately society did not contribute anything to develop good teachers and therefore we should discuss the objectives, procedures, etc. released to empowerment of teachers educators. He stressed the need for committed persons for empowerment of teachers. He said, "Empowerment should begin form those who have just entered the field of education. As political interference hinders the process of selecting good teachers, education should remain away from political interference at all cost."

The President of Vidya Bhawan Society Shri Riaz Tehsin said, "Automation is creeping in education today and hence today's teachers should be self learners. But there is a problem of access and excellence. He further said, "For empowerment we should ensure that each one has easy access to information in order to lead themselves to excellence. He also expressed the opinion, "The structured teacher training system hinders the process of preparing quality of teachers and restricts innovations on their part. Hence some freedom has to be imparted in the system."

Speaking on the occasion Prof. B.P. Bhatnagar, ex-vice Chancellor, JRN University, Udaipur said, Teacher educators should earn respect through their honest behavior, be dedicated, committed, and have self confidence. They should be bold and courageous to fight for the right thing so that they can academically and professionally rule where, ever they work.

At the end of the inaugural session Dr. D.N. Dani, Vice-principal of briefly discussed the changes and innovations carried out at the VBIASE in the training programme and gave a vote of thanks. After the inaugural session the seminar moved on to the technical sessions as planned.

Technical Session I : 3.15 p.m. to 6.00 p.m.
Sub Theme : Quality Concerns in Teacher Education
Chair : Prof. B.K. Passi
Initiator : Dr. H.K. Dewan
Reporters : Mrs. Anita Katewa & Mrs. Ruchi Rawat
Dinner : 7.30-8.00 p.m. Vidya Bhawan School Mess
Sham-E-Gazal : 8.30 p.m. Auditorium

On the first day this technical session started at 3.15 p.m. and continued upto 6 p.m. The sub-theme of this session was 'Quality Concerns in Teacher Education'. Dr. H.K. Dewan, Educational Advisor and Organizing Secretary was the chairperson for the session. Prof. B.K. Passi acted as initiator.

He initiated the technical session stressing a need to make the teacher education programme meaningful and substantial. In all nineteen participants presented their papers. The details are as follows -

After presentation of each paper, there a was discussion related to the paper in the house. The discussion was as follows - The House discussed the issues related to appointments and other conditions of services of teacher educators in colleges established in the year 2006-07.

One of the suggestions was that the institutes should follow NCTE rules. It was recommended that these institutes should be inspected by NCTE from time to time to check their status. It was also recommended that newly established colleges should follow and consider the calendar of activities prepared by NCTE. The House also discussed the meaning of the term 'Empowerment' and came to the conclusion that there was always a scope of empowerment. There was a discussion on the issue of status of Teacher Education. The house advocated that Teacher Education must be a part of higher education and all the teacher educators must attend a refresher course of one and a half month duration and it must be mandatory for all of them.

The House suggested that newly appointed teacher educators should be encouraged by their management to attend seminars and conferences to empower themselves in the field of education. Management should provide financial assistance to teacher educators for such activities. Prof. D.N. Dani informed that in this seminar Vidya Bhawan Teachers College was providing T.A. to the teacher educators below 45 years of age as per the UGC norms.

It was also discussed that teacher education could not be empowered unless it was under higher education i.e. U.G.C. One of the participants said that in classroom teaching, teachers should encourage the students for creativity. It was also discussed that teacher educators would be empowered if the norms of teacher colleges stated by NCTE were followed religiously. 50% of the money sponsored by the Govt. for seminars should be spent on empowerment of teacher educators. It was also suggested that some amount of money from the income of PTET (Pre Teacher Education Test) should be given to teachers colleges for developing their resources. The areas of stress of teacher educators should be traced out and solutions should be found to minimize it.

A question was also raised about that why M.A. in education should be considered equivalent to M.Ed. which is a professional degree. Some questions were also raised for the accountability and commitment of teacher educators. The House discussed various problems caused due to the mushrooming of teachers colleges in the state. All the delegates were worried about the quality of these colleges. It was suggested that teacher educators should self evaluate and self assess their accountability towards their profession.

Technical Session II : 9.30 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. Empowerment of Teacher Educators
Sub Theme : Concepts, Issues, Areas, Innovations,Research and Extension activities
Chair : Prof. B.K. Passi, Indore
Reporters : Dr. Daya Dave, Dr. Shima Sarupriya
Presenters :

The second day of the conference began with technical session II chaired by Prof. B.K. Passi. In this session 39 participants presented their papers using dialogue approach. In this method the papers were presented in small groups and in five cycles. These cycles are Title cycle, Procedure Cycle, Findings Cycle, Link with the main Title cycle and 'Accommodations Cycle'.

In cycle each participant presented his/her title and in 'Procedure Cycle' they presented the procedure of their paper like exploratory, research based, opinion based etc. This was followed by the Findings Cycle in which each participant presented the main findings of their paper and then compared their findings with that of the other members in the group and also with the real life experiences. In the fourth cycle i.e. Link with the Main Theme of the seminar, the members of the group established a link of their title with the main theme of the seminar, and with the title of the papers by the other persons in the group. The last cycle was related to the recommendations for the seminar as per their own papers as well as those which came out from other papers of the group members. They related recommendations to their dreams in a realistic way in such a way that they could contribute to the nation.

This dialogue approach included instant questioning, comparing and contrasting each other in each cycle. At the end of the session the participants (delegates) were requested to give the feedback on the dialogue method used.

The feedback received in the written form was overwhelmingly positive and the delegates wanted it to be adopted for conference in general. These two technical sessions held in continuation with a tea break in between.

Tea : 11.30 a.m. to 11.45 a.m.
TECHNICAL SESSION III : 9.30 a.m. - 2.30 p.m.
Sub Theme : (a) Strategies and role of various agencies for empowering teacher educators
(b) Local and global scenario related to empowering teacher educators
Chair : Dr. Jitendra Sharma, Jodhpur
Initiator : Prof. J.K. Sood
Reporters : Mrs. Ruchi Rawat and Anita Katewa

The following papers were presented and discussed in this technical session :

In all, 21 papers were presented in this technical session.
The house discussed the process of metacognition and constructivism. It was also deliberated that learning should be activity based, be facilitated through enquiry approach and without burden. We should also take care of emotional and spiritual aspect of children.

There should be enabled learn through their environment. The house also discussed the school related problems faced by teachers colleges and the need to bridge the gap between the two. It felt the need for conducting action research based on the problems faced by the teachers in the school. The house was of the opinion that teacher education organizations should be empowered to solve many problems related to this area and should think over the present changing scenario and be ready to face the challenges related to the new world. The house also discussed the importance of value education in schools.

It was mentioned that teaching was the last resort for the people who were seeking for jobs. "It is a vicious circle in which teacher education is entangled and we have to find out ways of getting out of it. We should not only discuss hurdles but also find their solutions." Questions were also raised on commitment of teachers in schools.

At the end of technical session III an intervention on the issue of Teacher Education Empowerment was made by Dr. Sadhna Saxena, Central Institute of Education, Delhi. She emphasized that standard of Teacher Education should be raised to international levels. In this context language can be a constraint, and therefore to overcome this meaningful attempts should be made at the individual as well as institutional levels.

She also said that curriculum of teacher education should be based on the basic concepts of Education. She also said that education should also be based on the social context and processes. Now the focus should be on the child centred education and it is necessary to relate theory to practice. In the context of education she felt that teachers and Teacher Educators must have knowledge of the subject in depth. She also mentioned some hurdles in the field of education like - teaching profession taken causerally by society, intellectual lethargy of teachers and teacher educators, lack of autonomy to teachers, limited promotion opportunities etc.

Technical Session IV : 3.15 p.m. to 5.00 p.m.
Chair : Dr. D.N. Dani
Sub Theme : Constraints and challenges in capacity building of Teacher Educators
Reporters : Mrs. Anita Katewa
Presenters

Day II 25th March, 2007, Sunday

Technical Session VI : 5.15 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. (Open House Discussion)
Chair : Prof. Ramakant Agnihotri
Initiator : Prof. M.P. Sharma
Discussions
Chairperson : Prof. Ramakant Agnihotri Valedictory concluding
Remarks : Prof. M.P. Sharma
Recommendations & Outcome of Seminar : Dr. A.K. Paliwal & Dr. S. Sarupria
Vote of Thanks : Prof. Anu Poonia

This session was held at the end of the seminar from 5.15 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. It was chaired by Prof. Ramakant Agnihotri, Delhi University.The session was initiated by Prof. M.P. Sharma, Principal, Vidya Bhawan Teachers College, Udaipur (Raj.)

In this the participants were invited to give their views on the subject of seminar. A total eight participants presented their views.

Dr. M.L. Makhija said that the staff of B.Ed. college was not qualified and NCTE should check it. Dr. Anil Paliwal suggested that Dialogue mode should be adopted and participants who had experienced it in this seminar should discuss this with their staff members. Dr. Manish Saxena then raised the issue of empowerment of young teacher educators.

Dr. Manjula Babel suggested that there should be representation of U.G.C., N.C.T.E., Education department etc. in such seminar. Dr. Rameshwari Sharma suggested that we should go ahead with our original thinking as teacher educator instead of sticking to age old ideas.

Dr. Jitendra Sharma raised administrative problems in Teacher Education. He suggested that one of the reasons for these problems is the attitude of teacher educators and we should not expect miracles from other educational agencies. Teacher educators themselves should find out suitable solutions to the problems.

Dr. B.L. Vyas said "the government takes fees for 12 months from students but the management does not give salaries of summer vacation to teacher educators."

He also said, "Due to increase in the number of B.Ed. colleges there is a shortage of practicing schools. Government should check that RPSC exams for teachers are not organised in between the B.Ed. session."

Dr. A.K. Jain advocated for empowerment of inservice Teachers. Dr. Daya Dave said, "We should pay attention to the newly appointed teacher educators and their suggestions should also be considered empowerment of.

Prof. M.P. Sharma concluded, "We've to think about changing the strategies according to the charging scenario especially in the context of teacher education."

The resolutions and recommendation discussed and accepted by the open House are as follows :
1. Teacher Educators' empowerment will emerge by making the institutions adhere to the rules, norms and regulations laid down by regulatory bodies like the NCTE and UGC.
2. Teacher educators' service conditions, pay scales and salaries must to be regulated in tune with the prescribed norms.
3. For the academic and professional enhancement of the teacher. Educators, the facilities for continuous orientation of them should be provided. Attending refresher and orientation programmes being organized by Academic Staff Colleges must be made mandatory for all teachers teaching in Teacher Education Colleges (affiliated to different universities) in Rajasthan.
4. Crash courses for computer applications in teaching different school subjects must be organized for teacher educators, attending which must be compulsory.
5. English language enhancement programmes must be organized for Teacher Educators keeping in view the global context.
6. Secondary Teacher Education (B.Ed. programme) should be a part of Higher Education in Rajasthan.
7. M.A. in Education is not a professional but an academic degree, hence it should not be treated as equal to M.Ed.
8. A calendar of activities developed by NCTE should be made available to all the colleges for effective management of Teacher Education Programme.
9. Teacher Education programme should be redesigned keeping in view the National Curriculum Framework (NCF).
10. More efforts should be made to develop Teacher Education as a discipline with its own entity and identity.
11. All the teachers training colleges should be renamed as Colleges of Education.
12. There should be a University of Education in all the states and all Colleges of Education should be affiliated to this university.
13. National Council of Teacher Education and UGC must work in tendour.
14. All syllabi of academic colleges and universities be made subject to a review by corresponding faculty in education to ascertain proper pedagogical input.
15. UGC norms and service conditions in all Colleges of Education should be followed religiously.
16. Appointment of teachers in schools should strictly be done on the basis of their teaching subjects at B.Ed. level for quality education.
17. Proper linkages between all the training agencies (DEO, DIETs, SIERTs, CTEs, IASEs) are essential for proper in-service teacher education.
18. Teacher Educators should form their forum and try to empower themselves.
19. Teacher Education Institutions should empower themselves by providing autonomy and facilities to the faculty.
20. Due to the complexity in transactional modes, teacher educators should work for a variety of alternative models keeping a democratic set up in mind.
21. In order to implement the recommendations offered in the seminar there should be representatives from the NCTE, UGC and other national bodies.
22. Conferences could be organized in a more interactive manner unlike the traditional paper reading mode. The encouraging positive feedback on the dialogue method used in a group of 40 participants in this seminar indicate that the dialogue method should also be used in seminars.
23. For collective empowerment of the teacher educators at institutional level, the institutions should also findout their own ways of empowerment.
24. In order to enhance the quality, reliability and validity of the pre-teacher-education test for B.Ed. course it should be designed only by experienced teacher educators.
25. Teacher educators should acquire multilingual efficiency in this age of globalisation.
26. Instead of merely selecting teachers based on State Public Service Commission Test, merit cum selection test performance should be considered for post training selection.
27. Teacher Educators should form their forum and try to empower themselves.
28. Teacher Education Institutions should provide facilities and autonomy their staff in order to make the environment conducive to capacity building of teachers.
29. Teacher Education is a complex process. It needs a variety of alternative modes as single solution would work.
30. Teacher Educators should develop a pedagogy of using ICT in classrooms and train their students for this.
31. Teacher educators should form on line discussion boards, research boards etc. for their self empowerment.

At the end of the technical session VI, the valedictory session was organized, which was also chaired by Prof. Ramakant Agnihotri. The website of the host institute was launched by Prof. B.K. Passi and it was presented by Dr. A.K. Paliwal. Prof. Agnihotri invited a member of the reporters to present the recommendations of the seminar in the house for manimous approval by the house Dr. Shima Sarupria read out the recommendations which were incidentally partially modified and finally approved by the house to be forwarded to the UGC for their kind attention & consideration.

The Director of the seminar and Principal of the institute was requested to offer his concluding remarks related to the seminar Prof. A. Poonia coordinator of the seminar gave a vote of thanks to the UGC, resource persons, guests and the staff for their cooperation for the successful conduct of the seminar. She was happy to inform the house that a total of 75 papers were presented in the seminar which was attended by 110 teacher educators from across the country.

She expressed the hope that the teacher educators would continue deliberating the issues in future at appropriate forum for a more meaningful teacher education and academically and pedagogically relevant contexts.

Chair : Prof. J.K. Sood
Reporters : Dr. S. Sarupria & Mrs. Anita Katewa
Discussants/paper presenters :

Tea : 11.30 a.m. - 11.45 a.m.
TECHNICAL SESSION V : 11.45 a.m. to 12.40 p.m.
Sub Theme : Local and Global Scenario related to Empowering Teacher Educators
Chair :
Initiator :
Reporters : Dr. A.K. Paliwal & Mrs. Ruchi Rawat
Discussants/paper presenters :

Lunch : 12.40 p.m. - 1.30 p.m.
TECHNICAL SESSION VI : 1.30 p.m. to 4.00 p.m. Open House Discussion
Chair : Prof. Ramakant Agnihotri
Initiator : Prof. D.N. Dani
Recommendations & Outcome of Seminar : Dr. A.K. Paliwal & Dr. S. Saruparia
Vote of Thanks : Prof. Anu Poonia
Tea : 4.00 p.m. to 4.15 p.m.

On 24th March 2007 a musical night is being organised at 8.30 p.m. in Vidya Bhawan Auditorium.