ANNALS OF EDUCATION

e-ISSN: 2455-6726
Vol. 5(1), March 2019: 86-89
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Published By: Council of Research & Sustainable Development

RESEARCH PAPER

Teacher Education in 21st Century: Challenges in India: A Study

Abida Sultana
Education College, Basantapur, Murshidabad
Email: [email protected]
Received: 14th March 2019, Revised: 25th March 2019, Accepted: 30th March 2019

ABSTECT
Education is a process which helps to empower individual's abilities and behavior. Quality of any country’s
citizen depends upon the quality of their education and quality of education is related to the quality of their
teachers. In any educational program, teacher is the most important component who is mainly accountable for
carrying out the educational process at any level. In 21st century education, teaching learning process changes
rapidly. Technology, digital gadgets, apps etc. have taken important place in our education system which
requires teachers to perform various roles in 21st century beyond the role of facilitator for the learning of
knowledge. This shows that it is necessary to invest in the preparation of teachers. This paper aims to discuss the
issues or challenges of teacher education in the period of globalization and digital technology such as
inadequacy of technological infusion in teacher education, rarity of innovations, mismatches between demand
and supply, lack of resources materials etc.
Key words: Education, Teacher education, 21st century, Challenges, Technology

INTRODUCTION
“Education is a process of living through a continuous reconstruction of experience”
....John Dewey
Education is our basic needs, which is required for the physical, intellectual, emotional and ethical
development of an individual being. Education is the process of acquiring desirable knowledge,
understanding, skills, interests, attitude and critical thinking which guides us to differentiate
between right and wrong. An educated person must think clearly and should have open mind that
is receptive to new ideas. He should have the understanding and reject the dangerous appeal of
bigotry, propaganda and preconceived notions. Political, social and economic development of a
country as well as the standard of its people depends on the level of quality education they are able
to get. Education provides knowledge about values, ethics and moral responsibilities in life and
promotes the qualities of simplicity, integrity and tolerance. Education is a continuous process
which will be incomplete without the help of teacher. In any Educational program teacher is the
most important component who is mainly accountable for carrying out the educational process at
any level.
“Education is the key to success in life and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their
students.” …Solomon Ortiz
A teacher is someone who is equipped with relevant knowledge, skills and abilities to aid or help
someone to learn something. A teacher must undergo a special training in teacher training
institutions to get the desired certificate to qualify himself as a teacher and to join jobs to teach in
educational institutions. Teacher’s role is not only confined to classroom teaching, he has to
perform a very significant role in society of which he is a member. Role of a teacher also changes
with changing society and education process. Teachers are the main support system of sound and
progressive society. Apart from parents they are the source of knowledge and value for children. As
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam says,
“If you are a teacher in whatever capacity, you have a very special role to play because more than
anybody else it is you who are shaping the future generation. A teacher has a higher responsibility as
compared to other professionals as students look upon the teacher as an embodiment of perfection.”
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This shows that it is necessary to invest in the preparation of teachers so that we can efficiently
nurture our next generation and secure our nation. So, as a nation India’s capacity to educate its
people depends largely on its ability to attract, recruit, train and support caring and committed
teachers.

MEANING OF TEACHER EDUCATION

Teacher education is a program which is associated to the development of prowess and skillfulness
as teacher that would allow and empower the teacher to meet the need of the profession. Teacher
education includes innumerous community programs and extension activities such as non-formal
education program, adult education, literacy, development activities of the society. It is very broad
and comprehensive in its meaning not only limited to pre-service and in-service program. Teacher
education consists of teaching skills, adequate pedagogical theory and professional skills.

TEACHER EDUCATION IN 21st CENTURY

21st century is the age of enormous scientific and technological advancement. Technology and
digital gadgets, apps are immensely become popular into our teaching learning atmosphere. In
present scenario teachers have to go beyond the role of facilitators for the learning, they have to
perform various roles like supporting, motivating in teaching learning process. They have to
update their knowledge according to new trends and new innovations. In present day trends like
inter-disciplinary approach, correspondence courses, orientation courses e.t.c. are included in
teacher education. Apart from this micro teaching, programmed instructions, simulated teaching is
all parts of teacher education. With all of these, it is also essential that teacher should know the
values and ethics besides being competence in his skills related to teaching. To prepare the global
teacher systematic changes have to be made. It includes in the form of competent human resources,
adopting new technologies, curriculum changes, physical facilities etc. In present scenario teacher
needs to learn how to deal with the problem of complexity that is increasing with the changing
nature of teaching and learning in the teaching-learning environment. NCFTE (2010) has been a
remarkable step in designing the teacher education in India. Pre-service and in-service teacher
education is the two major component of teacher education in India. NCTE is responsible for
regulating and controlling the pre-service teacher education. It lays down the standards, minimum
qualifications for teacher educators, duration, curriculum, minimum qualifications for entry of
student teacher for various courses. In-service teacher education is handled by different
institutions at different levels such as NUEPA, NCERT, regional institute of education like SCERT,
DIET, IASE, Block and cluster resource centre. The effort made by all of these institutions especially
NCTE are indeed appreciable but teacher education is struggling to strengthen its identity. Teacher
education institutions are lacking behind to realize the purpose and objectives of teacher
education.

CHALLENGES OF TEACHER EDUCATION IN INDIA IN 21st CENTURY

To think about teacher education in 21st century India is actually to assume that the present system
is not functioning as expected due to many obstacles and challenges in the present age which
follows-
QUALITY CRISIS:
High quality education has broad ranging benefit to individual and society. Every child deserve
efficient teacher but teacher education failed to maintain its standard. Practical implication of
education is lacking as teachers are not able to solve problem of real life situation. Duration of B.Ed,
B.P.Ed and M.Ed has been increased to two years, so that their quality and professional diligence
will increase. But there is huge difference between expected and actual quality of teacher education
in present day India.
CURRICULUM:
Curriculum for teacher education should be dynamic, forward looking and futuristic. There are
many expectations from the teacher of 21st century. So curriculum should concentrate on fulfilling

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those expectations. There should be inclusion of locally relevant content in the pedagogy as well as
curriculum which helps the students to develop the concept as well as apply the classroom
knowledge in real life. Student- teacher do not take practice teaching seriously, they remain
careless and unwise which are obstacles in the development of pedagogical skills.
ACUTE SHORTAGE AND INCOMPETENCY OF TEACHERS:
There is huge shortage of teacher educator in Govt. as well as private institutions which ultimately
affects the teacher education process in India. There are many universities, colleges conducting
teacher education program. Private teacher education institute are also flourishing but there are
evidence that objectives of teacher education is not fulfilled. Favorable chance for student-teachers
to develop their capacity are not provided by the present training program as most of this training
program is not well concerned with the present problems of schools education.
COMMERCIALIZATION OF TEACHER EDUCATION:
Number of teacher education institutes has been widely expanded from last one decade. B.Ed and
D.Ed degrees have huge social demand which surmise some of the job placement and security.
Private institutions are charging huge amount of fees from the students. This type of practice is
highly undemocratic and it also leads to the downfall in the quality and standard of teacher
education.
LACK OF TECHNOLOGICAL INTEGRATION:
In India pace of modernization is very slow. To infuse the technological innovation for transacting
the education we need suitable infrastructure and instructional facilities. Our country have rare
patent in education technology as we focused on knowledge deepening rather than knowledge
construction. Integration of technology in education is still lacking though a number of teacher
education institution have initiated into ICT in education either as core course or optional course.
There is also need to emphasize on info-savvy skills, techno-pedagogic skills which help teacher or
student teacher in finding suitable information efficiently in the era of digital technology.
INADEQUATE RESOURCES:
Most of the institution does not have all this laboratories namely guidance and counseling lab,
psychology lab, language lab, science lab etc. except computer lab. If any institution has some of
these laboratories they are in very bad state to utilize its purpose. There is also unavailable of
recent books, most of the books are outdated and also there is lack of proper library and necessary
equipment for teacher education which ultimately affects the very purpose and quality of teacher
education.
DEFICIT OF LIFE SKILLS:
Life skills are very essential for all round development but it is lacking among the teacher-
educators and student-teacher. Teacher education is more of memory-based i.e. very little active
involvement of the student-teachers. Life skills help a man to manage life's difficulties and
problems more effectively. It includes thinking skills, problem solving skills, effective
communication skills, stress management etc.
CRUMBLING OF VALUES:
In 21st century there is devaluation with respect to our values. Our education system faces crisis of
social and moral values. Impact of globalization has adversely affected the mindset of people which
can only be corrected through acquiring our value orients of education system.
MANAGEMENT ISSUES:
One of the challenges related to Teacher Education is In-service Training programs which is not
organized in a systematic manner due to insufficient of funds or delayed release of funds. These
programs are organized mostly without proper evaluation and monitoring.
ISOLATION AND INEQUALITY:
Department of Education in a university is separated from other academic departments so there is
very little interaction between the education and other academic departments. Teacher Education
Institutions also become isolated from schools. Each training college should have one practicing

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school attached to them. To remove the existing isolation interchange of the staff of the co-
operating school and the Teacher Education Institutions for a time period may help a long way.
There is a huge disparity between demand and supply of teachers in certain areas. In some areas,
over supply of trained teachers which leads to the problem of unemployment like West Bengal,
while in some other parts there is acute shortage like North-East. It is also necessary to check the
imbalance in the quality of teacher education from one region to another in such a diversified
country like India.
NEGLECTS HIGHER EDUCATION:
Contribution toward higher education is very little, secondary level teacher education pays no
attention to the higher education. Main focus of Teacher Education in India is school education so
preparation of school teachers is the only concerned.
INEFFICIENT RESEARCH:
Research in education needs to be innovative. It should be based on the local problems, also give
focus on the qualitative and suggestive as there is more of quantitative, descriptive and evaluative
research. Quality of research is very poor, devoid of freshness, also lack in originality, continuity.
Principles of research such as transparency, objectivity, generality and equivalence have not been
observed properly. Lack of indigenous methodology and more of borrowed methodology is used.

CONCLUSION
As we are facing many challenges in the 21st century our teachers should assume new roles
and should have the knowledge, self-confidence, and all the required resources to deliver
the expectations of the society as well as community. Besides these teachers must be
trained to gain knowledge throughout their life and develop new skills in order to be
remaining always effective in teaching others to learn to know, to do, to be and to live
together.

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3. Anand C.L. (2000): Teacher Education in emerging India. NCERT, New Delhi.
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5. Dixit M. (2014): Teacher education in India- problems and suggestions. International Journal of Research, 1(4): 414-
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6. Goel D.R. and Chhaya G. (2012): Teacher Education Scenario in India: Current Problems & Concerns. MIER Journal of
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How to cite this article:

Sultana A. (2019): Teacher Education in 21st Century: Challenges in India: A Study. Annals of
Education, Vol. 5[1]: March, 2019: 86-89.

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